Cfje Winihtxiitp of Cl^icaso 



THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

A STUDY m THE HISTORY AND POLITICAL THEORY 
OF ^^HE ENGLISH GREAT CIVIL WAR 



A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE 

SCHOOL OF ARTS AND LITERATURE IN CANDIDACY FOR 

TJE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 

(DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY) 



BY 

THEODORE CALVIN PEASE 



A PRIVATE EDITION DISTRIBUTED BY 
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO LIBRARIES 



THE TRADE EDITION IS PUBLISHED 

BY THE 

AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION 

WASHINGTON 

1916 



THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 



To this Essay was awarded the 

Herbert Baxter Adams Prize 

IN European History 

for 1915 



Wi)t Winihevsiit^ of Chicago 



THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

A STUDY IN THE HISTORY AND POLITICAL THEORY 
OF THE ENGLISH GREAT CIVIL WAR 



A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE 

SCHOOL OF ARTS AND LITERATURE IN CANDIDACY FOR 

THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 

(DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY) 



BY 

THEODORE CALVIN PEASE 



A PRIVATE EDITION DISTRIBUTED BY 
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO LIBRARIES 



THE TRADE EDITION IS PUBLISHED 

BY THE 

AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION 

WASHINGTON 

1916 



^M 



t) 



^ 






A Limited Edition of this Essay has been Printed and the 
Type Distributed 



Copyright, 1916 

By The American Historical Association 

Washington, D. C. 



GitI . 



MAR :? W\7 



COMPOSED AND PRINTED AT THB 

WAVERLY PRESS 

Bt the Williams & Wilkins CoMPAJfT 

Baltimobb, Md., U. S. A. 



To 

My Mother 



PREFACE 

^T^HE following essay was begun seven years ago 
-*■ as a study in Professc - A. C. McLaughlin's 
history seminar at Chicago ; greater part of the 
material on which it is based was collected in the 
British Museum in 191 1; and the completed essay 
was accepted as a doctoral dissertation at the 
University of Chicago in 19 14. 

Many persons and institutions have helped at 
one stage or another of the essay's progress. Pro- 
fessor McLaughlin suggested the subject and at 
every point in its development has been ready 
with needed advice or criticism. Professor Con- 
yers Read of the University of Chicago has shown 
great interest in the study and has afforded me 
much help and encouragement. I have to thank 
the University of Chicago for permitting a resi- 
dent fellowship to be partly used in foreign study; 
and the British Museum, the Bodleian, and the 
Newberry Library of Chicago for the privileges 
of their reading rooms. The Library of Congress 
and Harvard College Library have assisted me 
with the loan of certain rare pamphlets. Miss 
Addie F. Rowe has verified certain statements 
based on pamphlets in the Harvard College Library 
which the librarian did not feel free to lend. 
Messrs. B. F. Stevens and Brown of London have 
carefully rechecked very many statements, refer- 
ences, and quotations from pamphlets in the 



viu PREFACE 

Thomason Collection in the British Museum. 
Professor C. W. Alvord of the University of Illi- 
nois has read the essay in manuscript with a view 
to its literary form, and has offered valuable criti- 
cisms and suggestions. My brother has aided me 
greatly in improving the style and manner of presen- 
tation. Dr. H. Barrett Learned, chairman of the 
Publication Committee of the American Historical 
Association, has made himself responsible for the 
reading of the proof with copy and for the con- 
sistency of the printer's style in the volume; I 
have further to thank him for assistance in seeing 
the volume through the press. Miss Lucille M. 
Allen has assisted in the preparation of the index. 

Theodore C. Pease. 
Urbana, Illinois, 
October 4, 191 6. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

Introduction 1 

I. The Doctrine of Parliamentary Sovereignty, 

1640-1645 7 

II. The Ecclesiastical Supremacy of Parliament 

versus the Law of God, 1642-1646 50 

III. The First Radical Criticism of Parliament 86 

IV. 1646. The Radical Attack on Arbitrary Power.. 120 
V. 1647. The Birth of the Leveller Party 156 

VI. The First Agreement of the People 193 

VII. The Organization of the Leveller Party: the 

Appeal to Reason 229 

VIII. November-March, 1648/49 258 

IX. The Triumph of the Commonwealth 278 

X. The Levellers' Case against the Commonwealth. 301 

XL The Chmax of the Leveller Constitutional 

Theories 326 

Xn. Conclusion 348 

Bibliography 365 



The Law is that which puts a difference betwixt Good 
and Evil, betwixt Just and Unjust; if you take away the 
Law, all things will fall into Confusion, every Man will 
become a Law to himself, which in the depraved condition 
of Human Nature, must needs produce many great Enormi- 
ties; Lust will become a Law, and Envy will become a Law, 
Covetousness and Ambition will become Laws. John Pym. 



INTRODUCTION 

'T^HE establishment In England of a democratic 
-■■ government limited and bounded by law — 
that in a word was the vision pursued in the 
midst of the political strife and confusion of the 
Great Civil War by the men ordinarily called 
Levellers. To trace the evolution of this idea 
and of the corollaries to it that completed the 
Leveller platform, to show the political machinery 
devised by the Levellers to promote it, and in 
short to sketch the history of the Leveller move- 
ment as a whole is the purpose of this essay. 

The political ideas of the Levellers at the out- 
set were perceptibly molded by two different 
intellectual forces. The first of these originated 
in the series of controversies in the years 1640-43 
through which the Long Parliament advanced 
from the doctrine of the supremacy of the law to 
the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty. The 
second force came from the ecclesiastical dispute 
centering around the Westminster Assembly that 
gave form and spirit to the Independent idea of 
church government, originating in compact and 
limited by the supreme law of Christ. In the 
course of translating this idea into politics the 
Levellers in successive drafts of Agreements of 
the People developed the concept of a written 
constitution originating in a compact of the sover- 
eign people and, therefore, superior to govern- 

1 



2 INTRODUCTION 

ment. Such ideas led them further still — almost 
to the conclusion that the interpretation of their 
constitution was of necessity a judicial function 
belonging to the courts. 

So defined, the Leveller movement has more than 
antiquarian interest. The fact that such a thing 
as the Leveller party existed, and professed con- 
stitutional ideas and methods similar to those 
developed in American constitutional history is 
more than an interesting coincidence. In truth 
it reveals at a critical point in the development of 
English political institutions a trend toward the 
supremacy, not of government, nor of a branch 
of government, but of law. 

Historians, it is true, have assigned the idea 
of the supremacy of law an important position 
in the earlier stages of the Puritan Revolution. 
They have quoted Coke's saying of 1628, "Sover- 
eign Power is no Parliamentary word; . . . . 
Magna Charta is such a Fellow that he will have 
no Sovereign,"^ and they have assigned due sig- 
nificance to the fact that in the Petition of Right 
Parliament defined the ancient statutes of the 
realm as a law paramount to the prerogative. 
On the other hand they have recognized the fact 
that the indirect consequence of 1640, 1660, and 
1688 has been to make Parliament sovereign over 
the law. "We have," wrote Professor Maitland, 
"no irrepealable laws; all laws may be repealed 
by the ordinary legislature, even the conditions 
upon which the English and Scottish parliaments 

1 Quotation adapted. John Rushworth, Historical Collections, I, 562. 



INTRODUCTION 3 

agreed to merge themselves in the parliament 
of Great Britain. "^ In general, the meeting of 
the Long Parliament in 1640 is the point at which 
commentators center attention on the waxing 
idea of parliamentary supremacy, and ignore the 
waning idea of supremacy of law. 

But while the dilemma of sovereign Parliament 
or absolute king is a statement of the constitutional 
issues of the Great Civil War sufficiently exact 
to put the war in its right historical perspective, 
the Idea of supreme law did not disappear on 
November 3, 1640, as one might infer. The 
Long Parliament itself for a year maintained In 
Its UTtterances that the law was sovereign; It was 
only as the Interpreter of the law that It claimed 
sovereignty for Itself In 1642. Moreover, from 
1645 to 1653 Levellers preached to the nation the 
need for a sovereign law to bind the Parliament. 
The Levellers, therefore, as champions of supreme 
law, assume Importance as exponents of the idea 
that was the necessary counterpart and opposite 
to the Idea of absolute government. 

This fact, the author thinks, has Importance for 
both English and American constitutional his- 
tory. We may not trace adequately the develop- 
ment of any political Idea, If we Ignore the opposi- 
tion the idea encounters. As students of the 
English constitution, we can scarce hope to under- 
stand fully how a sovereign parliament cam.e Into 
being, until we understand also why men opposed 
it. Furthermore, we must remember that very 

* Frederick W, Maitland, Constitutional History of England, p. 532. 



INTRODUCTION 



much of the political theory of the American 
revolutionary and constitutional periods had its 
background in English thought. And while this 
last idea is by no means new, the fact that a subordi- 
nate party in the Great Rebellion assumed the 
doctrinal position of the American Whigs in the 
Revolution of 1775 has hardly been emphasized. 
The fact that in the seventeenth-century revolution 
men urged the establishment of a paramount 
law should certainly afford us a clearer perception 
of the eighteenth-century revolution that finally 
accomplished that same end. 

Furthermore, the American Revolution left em- 
bedded in American constitutional theory the 
principles of John Locke. The idea that God 
created man free of subjection to government, 
the idea that the laws of nature protected the 
safety and happiness of individuals before govern- 
ment began, and continued after the formation 
of human society to protect the individual against 
the tyranny of his ruler; the idea that all just 
government originates in the consent of the gov- 
erned; all these American political theories were 
stated by John Locke a year after the revolution 
of 1688. They had been stated by the Levellers 
forty years earlier in the revolution of 1640-1660. 

The present treatment of this subject must 
necessarily concern itself almost exclusively with 
the events and theories of 1 640-1 660. Space 
will not permit of a comparative constitutional 
commentary. Similarly, attempts to trace back 
the Leveller ideas beyond the year 1640 are im- ,. 



INTRODUCTION 5 

possible in the scope of this essay. The origins 
of such ideas, of course, lie centuries back in the 
political thinking of England and Europe. It is 
equally impossible to appraise the various factors 
in the social and economic life of seventeenth- 
century England, that, working through the minds 
of the Levellers, influenced their ideas. All that 
can be done is to note such obvious connections 
between economic and social abuses and proposed 
remedies as were actually present to the minds 
of the Levellers themselves. 

The material employed is in great measure 
the controversial pamphlet literature of the time. 
The dangers in its use are obvious. The need of 
manuscript evidence to supplement it is great; 
but such evidence is almost entirely lacking. 
Living about London in close touch with one an- 
other, the Leveller leaders naturally communi- 
cated by word of mouth rather than by letter. 
A few scattered pieces of correspondence exist 
here and there; but in such unexpected places as 
to indicate the fact that the unearthing of any 
considerable body of correspondence throwing new 
light on the Levellers must be the result of acci- 
dent rather than design. 

For certain purposes this dearth of document 
material is not serious. Controversial writings 
are the best guide in the study of elaborated politi- 
cal ideas and theories. Even for the life of a 
man or a political party, the pamphlet material, 
written as it was by contemporaries with different 



6 INTRODUCTION 

political viewpoints, becomes a valuable and self- 
correcting source of information. 

The limitations of the material, however, are 
great. After one has recorded the obtainable 
facts of the Leveller movement, he feels he has 
told what we may know of it, rather than what 
we should like to know. In the following chapters 
John Lilburne is assigned a greater space than 
probably his comparative importance in his party 
would justify; but the surviving material naturally 
groups itself around his robust and active personal- 
ity. We can only conjecture who devised the 
ideas, the manifestos, the machinery of the Level- 
ler party; but we know that John Lilburne was 
the Leveller incarnate. In his doings and his 
martyrdoms for principle John Lilburne illustrated 
and popularized the ideas of the Levellers. 

The method of treatment may appear unduly 
partial to the Levellers. In spirit the work is 
frankly an appreciation, although a prepossession 
in favor of the Levellers has not hindered the 
fair statement of any evidence to their discredit 
at all worthy of consideration. From the days 
of the Levellers themselves down to the present 
time hostile comments have been frequent. Im- 
partial estimates of their part in the political 
struggle of the English Revolution may be found 
in modern historians. Here the attempt is to 
show what is best in the men and in their ideals; 
to indicate the contribution they made to the 
world's political ideas. 



CHAPTER I 

The Doctrine of Parliamentary Sovereignty, 
I 640- I 645 

I. the doctrinal evolution of parliamentary 
sovereignty, 1 640-1 642 

POLITICAL exigencies led the Long Parliament 
■^ to propound during the first two years of its 
existence two conflicting theories of the English con- 
stitution. In 1640 Parliament met the king's claims 
to absolute power with the doctrine that the liber- 
ties of England were protected by fundamental 
law. In 1642, confronted with the necessity of 
waging war against the king, Parliament had to 
rid itself of the limitations that precedent had 
placed on its activity. It accomplished this end 
by claiming the right to interpret without appeal 
the fundamental laws of the kingdom.. Soon all 
men could see that the right of interpretation as 
Parliament used it involved the right to make and 
set aside laws at pleasure. The power to inter- 
pret the constitution of the kingdom was the bridge 
that carried the Long Parliament from the doctrine 
of the supremacy of the law to the doctrine of the 
supremacy of Parliament. 

But in 1640 the Parliament leaders were con- 
cerned with criticising the illegal acts of others, not 
with seeking legal justification for their own. In 
the expressed opinion of the leaders of the Long 

7 



8 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

Parliament the dangers confronting England arose 
from assumption of undue power by the king, the 
bishops, and the judges. The twelve common-law 
justices at Westminster in their answer to the 
king's question regarding the lawfulness of ship 
money had laid down the principle that the king, 
in case of a great and declared necessity, of the 
imminence of which he alone was judge, might 
require financial aid of his subjects without the 
intervention of a parliament. Subjected to such 
interpretation every law and liberty of the English 
people lay at the mercy of the king's whim. ' ' Such 
Art," said a parliamentary pamphleteer, "hath been 
used to deny, traverse, avoid, or frustrate the true 
force, or meaning of all our Lawes and Charters, 
that if wee grant Ship-money upon these grounds, 
with Ship-money wee grant all besides."^ One of 
the judges, Robert Berkeley, had expressed him- 
self more bluntly than his fellows. On one occa- 
sion he had asserted that in certain cases judges on 
the bench were above an act of Parliament; on 
another he had announced "that there was a Rule 
of Law, and a Rule of Government, and that many 
things which might not be done by the Rule of 
Law, might be done by the Rule of Government. "^ 
The king himself, in a declaration published at the 
dissolution of the Short Parliament, had denounced 

^ The Case of Shipmony briefly discoursed, p. 2. Henry Parker. 
November 3, 1640. E. 204 (4). The numbers given here and here- 
after are the British Museum pressmarks. 

* John Rushworth, Historical Collections, II, 364, 323. (Cited here- 
after as Rushworth.) 



DOCTRINE OF PARLIAMENTARY SOVEREIGNTY 9 

the Commons for censuring the government, "as 
if kings were bound to give an account of their 
regal actions, and of their manner of government, 
to their subjects assembled in Parliament."^ The 
representative assembly of the Church of England 
had endorsed the doctrine of king and judges. 
The bishops and delegates assembled in convoca- 
tion after the dissolution of the Short Parliament 
had promulgated a series of canons that based the 
king's title on divine right, enjoined an extreme 
form of passive obedience on his subjects, and pro- 
nounced that in consideration of the divine right 
of their ruler they owed him tribute, subsidy, and 
aid. Nor had the churchmen failed to discover a 
higher sanction than the statute law for their own 
position in the state. In one of the canons of 1640 
they had prescribed to laymen an oath of fidelity 
to the church government as it then stood. Cer- 
tain bishops, too, claimed that they held their bish- 
oprics by divine right rather than by the law of 
the land.^ Bishops, king, and judges, all alike 
appeared to be setting themselves above the law 
of the land. 

However, the great mass of the members of the 
Long Parliament who worked in concert during the 
first months of 1641, acted on a far different theory 

' Cobbett, Parliamentary History, II, 578. 

* Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiasticall. 1640. E. 203 (2). The 
oath mentioned above, the " Et Cetera Oath," had employed an et cetera 
to sum up the church government which the taker of the oath swore to 
maintain — "Archbishops, Bishops, Deanes, and Archdeacons, &c." To 
the Puritans this was a delicious commentary on the divine origin 
claimed for the episcopal hierarchy. 



10 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

of the place of king, church, and courts in the 
English constitution. Their definitions of mon- 
archy, of prerogative, of the function of Parlia- 
ment, all pointed to one central theory — the su- 
premacy of law. 

In terming the English constitution a balanced 
monarchy, they implied the belief that the king, 
although supreme ruler of the nation, was bound 
by the law. They drew a distinction between 
what the king could do as a man and what he 
could do as a king; or, as Oliver St. John had put 
it in the argument on ship money, between the 
king's natural power and his legal power. They 
admitted that the law of England called the king 
the fountain of justice: they admitted that the 
law of England called itself the king's law. But 
they emphasized the fact that the king could law- 
fully dispense justice only through his courts 
and enact the law of England only through his 
High Court of Parliament. They admitted that the 
crown of England, in so far as it dispensed its 
benefits to the subject through constitutional 
institutions, was absolute; but, they said, it was 
absolute only because an act of the king not ac- 
cording to law was not an act of the crown. ^ 

In so limiting the absolute authority of the 
king, they stripped the word prerogative of the 
sanctity with which judges, bishops, and king 
had sought to invest it. Prerogative, said the 

* Rush worth, II, 485. St. John's statement is almost certainly 
typical of the average member's view. See also, Mr. Speakers Speech 
in the Lords House of Parliament. June 22, 1641. E. 198 (23). 



DOCTRINE OF PARLIAMENTARY SOVEREIGNTY 11 

men of 1640, was a special privilege pertaining 
to the king for the defense of his subjects and the 
support of his personal dignity;^ but the extent 
of the prerogative and the manner in which the 
subject was bound to supply the king with money 
for its support were strictly defined by the funda- 
mental laws of the land, unalterable save by the 
assent of king and people in Parliament.^ In 
1640 most Englishmen were ready to pronounce 
the fundamental laws of England a special bounty 
of divine Providence, so perfectly were those laws 
contrived to the end of keeping the balance even 
between the due liberty of the subject and the due 
prerogative of the king.* 

* "The Law of Nature best determines, that all Princes being publike 
Ministers for the common good, that their authoritj'- ought to be of 
sufficient latitude for that common good; and since Scripture is not 
expresse concerning that latitude, as to all people, the same not being 
to all alike necessary, the severall Lawes of severall Countries best 
teach that certaine latitude." A Discourse Concerning Puritans. Henry 
Parker. 1641. E. 204 (3) p. 47. 

^ Oliver St. John on ship money in 1637. Rushworth, II, 483-485. 

* "by the true fundamental constitutions of England, the beame 
hangs even between the King and the Subject; the Kings power doth 
not tread under foot the peoples liberty, nor the peoples liberty the 
kings power." The Case of Shipmony, p. 7. 

"Prerogative and liberty are both necessary to this kingdom; and, 
like the sun and moon, give a lustre to this benighted nation, so long 
as they walk at their equal distances; but when one of them shall ven- 
ture into the other's orb, like those planets in conjunction, they then 
cause a deeper eclipse. What shall be the compass then, by which 
these two must steer? Why nothing but the same by which they are, 
the law." An Honourable . . . Speech spoken in . . . Parlia- 
ment. By Mr. Smith. Oct. 28, 1641, E. 199 (8). In Harleian Miscel- 
lany, V,ll. 

See also Sir John Holland's speech on grievances, Nov. 7, 1640. 
Parliamentary History, II, 648; The Speech Or Declaration Of The Lord 
Faulkland, Jan. 14, 1640/1, E. 196 (26). 



12 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

Accordingly, the leaders of the Long Parliament 
in opposing the extensions of the prerogative based 
their arguments on the fundamental laws of the 
land. In Strafford's case, John Pym represented 
as treason the attempting to subvert the funda- 
mental laws of the land; for since those laws deter- 
mined at once the prerogative of the king and the 
liberty of the subject, an attempt to subvert them 
involved stripping the king of his legal right to 
his prerogative; and as the prerogative was de- 
signed for the king's protection, such subversion 
amounted to compassing his death. Said Pym 
in summing up against the Earl of Strafford: 

There is in this Crime a Seminary of all Evils hurtful 
to a State; and if you consider the Reasons of it, it must 
needs be so: the Law is that which puts a difference be- 
twixt Good and Evil, betwixt Just and Unjust; if you 
take away the Law, all things will fall into Confusion, 
every Man will become a Law to himself, which in the 
depraved condition of Human Nature, must needs pro- 
duce many great Enormities; Lust will become a Law, 
and Envy will become a Law, Covetousness and Ambition 
will become Laws; and what Dictates, what decisions 
such Laws will produce, may easily be discerned in the 
late Government of Ireland .... It is the Law 
that doth entitle the King to the Allegiance and Service 
of his People; it entitles the People to the Protection and 
Justice of the King. It is God alone who subsists by 
himself, all other things subsist in a mutuall Dependence, 
and Relation.^ 

It was easier for Pym to assert the existence of 
these laws than to say where they were to be found. 
Certainly, Magna Charta, confirmed above thirty- 

9 Rushworth, VIII, 662. 



DOCTRINE OF PARLIAMENTARY SOVEREIGNTY 13 

three times by various kings of England and ex- 
plained in the Petition of Right, contained some 
of them; other basic statutes did so too; but the 
application of the term, fundamental law, to the 
text of a statute or the text of several statutes 
was scarcely warranted by English traditional 
usage. As Professor Mcllwain says: "If a con- 
stituent law ever existed in England it must be 
looked for mainly in the attitude of men toward 
the law, or, better, in the rules applied by judges 
in cases arising under the law. The fundamental 
law there may be contained in a document, or 
documents, as in the case of Magna Charta, but 
the validity of that law is not due to the form of 
the document or documents but rather to the 
character of the principles."^" In seventeenth- 
century England "fundamental law" denoted a 
series of principles deducible from the common 
or statute law, or perhaps naturally inherent in 
the minds of all men. 

Such principles of fundamental law would be 
of little avail unless given practical application 
by some body or person empowered to interpret 
them authoritatively and finally. The Long Par- 
liament by virtue of being the king's highest court 
asserted its right to the ofhce of interpreter. Its 
claim should teach us that the word "Parliament" 
means one thing to writers of the seventeenth 
century and another to writers of the twentieth. 

^^ C. H. Mcllwain, The High Court of Parliament and its Supremacy, 
p. 61. 



14 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

Parliament is today the supreme legislature of 
the British Empire, but in the political thought 
of the seventeenth and of earlier centuries, Parlia- 
ment was less and more than a legislature. Less, 
because many thinkers would have asciibed the 
power of legislation, the power of making new laws, 
to the king ; although it was a power that he could 
exercise only in Parliament. ^^ More, because Par- 
liament, though its transcendent function was that 
of legislation as we understand the term today, 
was also the king's greatest council and the king's 
highest court. As the latter it had the duty of 
interpretation that of necessity belongs to any 
court — the duty of stating and interpreting a 
rule of law before applying it in the decision of 
a specific case. True, it is not easy to find the 
Long Parliament at work which we should today 
regard as judicial. But its contemporaries spoke 
of it as a court; and probably they considered 
such of its enactments as were declaratory of 
the older law as being decisions of a court rather 
than acts of a legislature. ^^ 

The august character of Parliament in its three 
functions of council, court, and legislature was 
traced to the fact that it represented the whole 
kingdom, and was the symbol of the perfect ac- 

" St, John had taken this position in his argument of 1637 on ship 
money. Supra, p. 10. It is also expressed in The Priviledges And 
Practice of Parliaments In England. Collected out of the Common Lawes 
of this La7id, 1640, E. 161 (1), p. 43. This view would hardly have 
gone unchallenged by 1642. 

" See Note I on p. 43. 



DOCTRINE OF PARLIAMENTARY SOVEREIGNTY 15 

cord of king and people. ^^ The wits of parlia- 
mentary orators and writers were exhausted in 
the search for quaint conceits to illustrate this 
relation: Parliaments were beds of reconciliation; 
as in the natural body the head and the members 
were one, so in the Parliament the kingdom and 
the king were knit into one body politic, and had 
but one will and one purpose. ^^ 

Having such exalted notions of the dignity of 
parliaments, the Long Parliament was sharp in 
its prosecution of those who in the era of personal 
government had infringed on parliamentary func- 
tions. This was true notably in the cases of 
Strafford and Laud, the men who in their practice 
had most notoriously departed from the rule of 
law to follow after the rule of government. Par- 
liament found like offenders in the judges and in 
the clergy in convocation. The judges, it held, had 
abused to the advantage of the prerogative their 
function of declaring the law of the land, when 

^* The emphasis on the value of the mutual consent of king and peo- 
ple to laws as securing their justness is marked. "Now the great 
Buttresse or Foundation upon which the Lawes of England stand (if 
I be not mistaken) is upon the free consent of the King and subject in 
the composing and framing of them . . . And doth also prevent 
them [the people] most of all excuses or quarrells against the lawes, 
for since it doth in a sort make them all (for the considerable part in 
policy) as well parties and agents in the making of the yoke, as passive 
in the bearing of it, we are so much the more deprived of all plea and 
exception against it, untill it bee taken off, or abrogated by the like 
power and upon the same termes." Thomas Warmstry, Pax Vobis, 
Dec. 1641, E. 180 (24), pp. 24-28 passim. 

"Sir Benjamin Rudyard, Apr. 18, 1640, Parliamentary History, 
II, 545. 



16 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

in the case of ship money they had reversed a pre- 
vious decision handed down by the High Court of 
ParHament in the Petition of Right. Convocation 
had abused its power of declaring the law in matters 
of religion, when it had prescribed an oath to 
laymen, and had assumed to define the king's 
right to tax his subjects. Both judges and clergy, 
therefore, stood convicted of having trespassed 
on the duties of the highest court of the land, 
the High Court of Parliament. ^^ 

The constitutional doctrine that Parliament 
was the final interpreter of the fundamental laws 
of the land contained, as has been indicated, 
the germ of the doctrine of parliamentary sover- 
eignty ; and the development of this latter doctrine 
divided the old constitutional party of the Long 
Parliament into the two parties that fought the 
civil war. The development of the doctrine and 
the divergence of the parties are devious and diffi- 
cult to trace. Its first official appearance per- 
haps is the Grand Remonstrance passed Novem- 
ber 22, 1641. This is the first public utterance 
by the narrower party forming around Pym and 
Hampden that ignores the organic concept of Par- 
liament — the concept that regarded the Parliament 
as the symbol of the unity of king and people. 
In ordering the Grand Remonstrance printed, 
the House of Commons bid against the king for 
the support of the nation. Clear-headed Royalists 
saw what it meant and stormed for the right 

"Sec Note I on p. 43. 



DOCTRINE OF PARLIAMENTARY SOVEREIGNTY 17 

of recording their protests against the measure. 
"When," said Sir Edward Bering, "I first heard 
of a Remonstrance, I presently imagined that 
like faithful Counsellors, we should hold up a 
Glass unto his Majesty: I thought to represent 
unto the King the wicked Counsels of pernicious 
Counsellors .... I did not dream that we 
should remonstrate downward, tell stories to the 
people, and talk of the King as of a third person. "^^ 
From this date the House of Commons began 
to emphasize its own importance in the state. 
Partly as a result of the attempt on the five mem- 
bers, statements of its privileges came to have a 
larger place in its utterances. Occasionally, as from 
Grimston's Guildhall speech^^ one gains the im- 
pression that the iniquity of the breach of privi- 
lege lay not so much in molesting the chosen serv- 
ants of the nation, as in interfering with the 
privileges of a corporate body — privileges per- 
haps not wholly ancillary to the good of the king- 
dom outside St. Stephen's Chapel. Furthermore, 
the Lower House ventured to assume to itself the 
new-found augustness of the Parliament. The 
utterances of the House of Commons began to 
imply that in case of necessity it might lawfully 
act without the Lords. In a conference with the 
Lords, January 25, Pym insinuated that if the 
obstinacy of the Upper House prevented the Com- 

I'Nalson, An Impartial Collection, II, 668 (cited hereafter as Nal- 
son). Bering's speech was on the first proposal to print, November 
22. The printing was not carried till December 15. 

"E. 200(5). 



18 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

mons from saving the kingdom with the Lords' 
concurrence, the Commons would save the king- 
dom without it.^* 

The Grand Remonstrance was the beginning of 
a paper war between the king and the ParHament 
that lasted well after the first shock of arms. At 
the very beginning, Parliament made long strides 
toward claiming supreme power. On the Militia 
Bill, by which for their own safety the Houses 
sought to get control of the militia organization 
of the kingdom. Parliament finally broke with 
the older policy, and the older theory of balanced 
power. March 15, the Houses declared that the 
Militia Ordinance was binding on the people, and 
that by the fundamental laws of the land it ought 
to be obeyed. In a resolution of March 16, they 
based their action on their right as supreme 
judicature of the kingdom to declare the law of the 
land. Briefly stated, their implied argument was 
that the law of the land in a time of great and 
evident danger was the law of salus populi; and 
that the Parliament as supreme judge of the laws 
of the land was judge also of the existence of such 
a law and of the necessity of invoking it.^^ 

^^ Parliamentary History, II, 1060. 

^"Commons Journal, II, 479, 481. Lords Journal, IV, 648, 650. 
Ajt exact Collection of all Remonstrances, Declarations, Ordinances, 

. . . and other . . . passages between the Kings most Excel- 
lent Majesty and his High Court of Parliament, Mar. 21, 1642/3, E. 241; 
E. 243 (cited as Husband), p. 114. The position stated in the last 
sentence of the above paragraph is the interpretation put by the declara- 
tion of May 19, on a phrase of the declaration of March 9. Husband, 
pp. 100, 197. 



DOCTRINE OF PARLIAMENTARY SOVEREIGNTY 19 

The position is clearly worked out in a Declar- 
ation of May 19, 1642, which is worth quoting at 
length. It states that the judgment of the Parlia- 
ment on a point of law 

is in the eye of the Law, the Kings Judgement in his 
highest Court; though the King in his person be neither 
present nor assenting thereunto ... If his Majesty 
should refuse to joyn with us therein, [on the Militia Bill] 
the two Houses of Parliament being the supream Court 
and highest Councell of the Kingdome, were enabled 
by their own authority to provide for the repulsing of 
such imminent, and evident danger, not by any new Law 
of their own making, as hath been untruly suggested to 
his Majesty, but by the most ancient Law of this King- 
dome, even that which is fundamentall and essentiall 

to the constitution and subsistance of it this 

Law is as old as the Kingdome. That the Kingdome 
must not be without a meanes to preserve it selfe, which 
that it may be done without confusion, this Nation hath 
intrusted certaine hands with a Power to provide in an 
orderly and regular way, for the good and safetie of the 
whole, which power, by the Constitution of this Kingdome, 
is in his Majestie, and in his Parliament together; yet 
since the Prince being but one person, is more subject 
to accidents of nature and chance, whereby the Common- 
Wealth may be deprived of the fruit of that trust which 
was in part reposed in him, in cases of such necessity, 
that the Kingdome may not be inforced presently to 
returne to its first principles, and every man left to doe 
what is aright in his owne eyes, without either guide or 
rule, The wisedome of this State hath intrusted the 
Houses of Parliament with a power to supply what shall 
bee wanting on the part of the Prince, as is evident by 
the constant custome and practice thereof, in cases of 
nonage, naturall disability, and captivity, and the like 
reason doth and must hold for the exercise of the same 
power in such cases, where the Royall trust cannot be, 
or is not discharged, and that the Kingdome runs an 
evident and imminent danger thereby; which danger, 



20 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

having been declared by the Lords and Commons in 
Parliament; there needs not the authority of any person 
or Court to affirme; nor is it in the power of any person 
or Court to revoke that judgement.^" 

The assumption that when the king's actions 
tended to the ruin of the kingdom his evil coun- 
sellors were responsible, was sanctioned by cen- 
turies of precedent. In view of the general dis- 
trust of the men like Lord Digby who had the 
king's ear, what was more natural than to apply 
the doctrine to Charles's refusal to assent to the 
Militia Ordinance? In view of the fact that 
Parliament was the king's supreme council, too, 
it seemed only reasonable to infer that the king's 
duty was to follow its advice, and during its sit- 
tings to pay no heed to counsel from any other 
quarter. This doctrine had great possibilities. 
If every regal act on the part of the king could be 
supposed to be the result of counsel, and If he 
were debarred from accepting other counsel than 
that of Parliament, he became a mere automaton 
to register its decrees. ^^ 

Indeed, the Houses found this a convenient line 
of attack on the king's veto power, or "negative 
voice." May i6, the Lords set a committee to 
make research as to whether kings had ever denied 
assent to public bills, save by withholding their 

20 Husband, pp. 197, 207-208 (arranged). 

21 A petition presented to the king after be had left Westminster 
takes the position that the very essence of Parliament will be des- 
troyed if its counsels are subject to reversal through the advice of pri- 
vate persons. Parliamentary Hisiory, II, 1350; see also Husband, p. 
206. 



DOCTRINE OP PARLIAMENT AR7 SOVEREIGNTY 21 

consent for a time, by the tactful formula, "Le 
roi s'avisera." May 26, Parliament asked in an- 
other declaration why, if Parliament were judge 
between king and people on the question of what 
was law, it should not be judge likewise of the 
kingdom's need for a legal remedy for an abuse? 
In other words, if Parliament by passing a statute 
implied its belief that the people stood in need of 
the statute, the king had no right to express a 
contrary opinion by withholding his consent. ^^ 

Manifestly Parliament in the early months of 
1642 was using its position of supreme interpreter 
to extract justification for its aggressions on the 
king's power out of the laws of the land and the 
law of salus popidi. The indirection by which 
it thus claimed powers that were virtually sovereign 
characterized the forms under which it prepared 
to vindicate its claims by force. True, in its 
resolutions of May 20 it stated with directness the 
actual situation — that the king seduced by evil 
counsel was about to make war on his Parliament; 
that in so doing he was guilty of an act that was a 
breach of his trust and tended to the dissolution 
of the government. But with the actual approach 
of hostilities the Houses had recourse to the time- 
honored quibbles of raising armies for the king's 
defense, and for the rescue of his person. July 12 
they voted: "That an Army shall be forthwith 

" Lords Journal, V, 66; Husband, p. 269. An argument a^^ainst 
the negative voice was developed also from the coronation oath wherein 
the king swore to assent to such good law5 as the Commons should 
choose — quas mdgus degerit. 



22 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

raised for the safety of the kings person, defence 
of both Houses of Parliament, and of those who 
have obeyed their Orders and Commands, and 
preserving the True Religion, the Laws, Liberty 
and Peace of the Kingdom." Simple people were 
once more perplexed at an army on foot for the 
inconsistent purpose of making war on the king 
to secure the safety of his person. ^^ 

The Parliament, therefore, employed the older 
terminology of the constitution to cloak actions 
that in reality were defensible only as acts of a 
sovereign power. It employed its assumed power 
of interpretation in order to make the law of the 
kingdom something entirely different from that 
which it was on the face of statute and precedent. 
The forced constructions of the fundamental laws 
of the kingdom, however, answered the immediate 
purpose ; they gave a show of legality to an assump- 
tion of power necessary to the safety of Parlia- 
ment and its followers. And once the parlia- 
mentary leaders had provided for the pressing 
necessity of the moment, they probably did not 
look far into the future. 

II. PARLIAMENTARY SOVEREIGNTY AS BASED ON 
THE LAW OF NATURE 

In the spring of 1642, arguments based on ab- 
stract principles of government began to supple- 
ment the constitutional technicalities that had 
filled the Parliament's official declarations. Un- 

" Husband, pp. 259, 457. 



DOCTRINE OF PARLIAMENTARY SOVEREIGNTY 23 

doubtedly Parliament won valuable support by 
appealing to thinking men on general principles 
of political science. But the substitution of ab- 
stract reasoning for dogmatic legal assertions 
encouraged men to reason for themselves. In the 
end, many who did so arrived at conclusions that 
their earlier teachers would hardly have endorsed. 
The political philosophy used in 1642 by Parlia- 
ment's partisans to defend its sovereignty is there- 
fore important as a source of political ideas, if 
for no other reason.^"* 

In May of 1642, relations between the king and 
the Parliament were passing beyond the stage 
where the recorded laws and precedents could by 
any interpretation be made conveniently to apply. 
The claim to supremacy being vital to Parlia- 
ment's position, the Parliament's penmen had to 
delve back into the origins of government to justify 
that claim. Assertion that the Parliament pos- 
sessed certain powers was not sufficient; demon- 
strations that in the nature of things it was ex- 
pedient for Parliament to possess them were 
needed. Henry Parker's Observations upon some 
of his Majesties late Answers and Expresses, an 
original and brilliant attempt at a demonstration 
of this type, may be said to open a new era in the 
political controversies of the Great Civil War.^^ 

The problem that Parker avowedly set himself 
was the inquiry into the "efficient and finall 

" See Note II on p. 45. 

** Observalians upon some of his Majesties late Answers and Expresses, 
July 2, 1642, E. 153 (26). 



24 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

causes" of both regal and parliamentary power. 
Power and authority, he decided, were originally 
inherent in the people, and were nothing else but 
"that might and vigour which such or such a 
societie of men containes in itselfe." The society 
could transfer this inherent power to a ruler only 
by a law "of common consent and agreement." 
This law, when so transferring power, had God's 
assent; "and so man is the free and voluntary 
Author, the Law is the Instrument, and God is the 
establisher of both." Hence it followed that "at 
the founding of authorities, when the consent of 
societies convayes rule into such and such hands, 
it may ordaine what conditions, and prefix what 
bounds it pleases, and that no dissolution ought 
to be thereof, but by the same power by which it 
had its constitution. "26 

As might be expected, Parker adopted a form 
of the salus populi argument. The charter of 
nature, he asserted, entitled "all Subjects of all 
Countries whatsoever to safetie by its supreame 
Law." The postulate that "the subject shall live 
both safe and free" limited the prerogative of all 
princes, no matter what the constitutions of the 
nations they ruled. Thus the necessity of the 
people's safety guided and defined the prince's 
prerogative of calling and dismissing Parliaments, 
and of assenting to their laws ; of the measures 
required to secure the safety of the nation, a Parlia- 
ment was supreme judge." 



* Observations, pp. 1, 2. 
"76i(i., pp. 3, 4ff. 



DOCTRINE OF PARLIAMENTARY SOVEREIGNTY 25 

Among the various checks imposed by the laws 
of specific nations, Parker instanced English par- 
liamentary government as the highest stage yet 
attained in an evolution that had brought orderly 
government out of barbaric disorder and violence. 
At the dawn of government, the depravity of 
fallen and sinful man had silenced the dictates of 
the law that God had implanted in his breast; 
accordingly, the existence of an authority strong 
enough to "provide new orders, and to judge of 
old, and to execute according to justice," was 
necessary. Then, after the tyranny of magis- 
strates intrusted with the execution of the laws 
had frustrated the benefit of this first remedy, the 
people had made trial of various expedients by 
which a law might be set above the magistrate 
and enforced. At times the people had risen in 
arms to redress their wrongs, but had achieved 
only confusion and bloodshed. Often in their 
ignorance they had only exchanged one tyranny 
for another. 

till some way [Parker concluded] was invented to 
regulate the motions of the peoples moliminous body, 
I think arbitrary rule was most safe for the world, but 
now since most Countries have found out an Art and 
peaceable Order for publique Assemblies, whereby the 
people may assume its owne power to doe it self right 
without disturbance to it selfe, or injury to Princes, he 
is very unjust that will oppose this Art and order. That 
Princes may not be now beyond all limits and Lawes, 
nor yet left to be tryed upon those limits and Lawes, 
by any private parties, the whole community in its un- 
derived Majesty shall convene to doe juctice, and that 
this convention may not be without intelligence, certaine 



26 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

times and places and formes shall be appointed for its 
regliment, and that the vastnesse of its owne bulke may 
not breed confusion, by vertue of election and representa- 
tion: a few shall act for many, the wise shall consent for 
the simple, the vertue of all shall redound to some, and 
the prudence of some shall redound to all. 

To Parker, the kingdom was not the creator of the 
Parliament ; rather the Parliament was the kingdom 
itself.28 

The doctrine that there was or could be any 
difference of interest or opinion between Parlia- 
ment and the people it represented was almost 
blasphemy to Parker. "... that great Priviledges," 
he said, "of all Priviledges, that unmoveable 
Basis of all honour and power, whereby the House 
of Commons claimes the entire rite of all the Gentry 
and Commonalty of England, has beene attempted 
to bee shaken & disturbed" from the fact that 
"the people upon causelesse defamation and un- 
proved accusations have been so prone to withdraw 
themselves from their representations and yet there 
can be nothing under heaven, next to renouncing 
God, which can be more perfidious, and more 
pernltlous In the people then this."" 

Parker's doctrine, ably as It was stated, did not 
fit the actual conditions of 1642. He was aware 
that he was ascribing supreme and arbitrary power 
to the Parliament. His excuse for the ascription 

** Pp. 10 £f. The author of The Contra Replicant (which Thomason 
ascribes to Parker also) calls the Houses the collective body of the 
realm, the equivalent of the councils that set up royalty and established 
its bounds in the first instance. January 31, 1642/3. E. 87 (5), p. 16. 

» See Note HI on p. 47. 



DOCTRINE OF PARLIAMENTARY SOVEREIGNTY 27 

was that "If the State Intrusts this [power] to 
one man, or few, there may be danger In it; but 
the Parliament Is neither one nor few, It Is Indeed 
the State It self." The facts were against this 
assertion. Were ParHament "the state It self," 
it must represent all the political Ideas and aspir- 
ations of the individuals who made up the state; 
and with Royalists everywhere rallying to the 
king. Parliament's sayings and actions were but 
the sayings and actions of a party; at best, the 
sayings and actions of a government which a great 
part of the kingdom repudiated. 

Parker did not consider that the actual situation 
militated against his theory. He never tempered 
his glorification of the nation's civil authority 
as an organic body by consideration for the rights 
or opinions of any of the Individuals of whom the 
nation was composed. In ascribing absolute power 
to the English people assembled in Parliament, he 
turned his back on the old common law of England, 
with Its blundering endeavors to secure certain 
rights to individual Englishmen. Parker's doc- 
trine of parliamentary sovereignty was In the end 
to become the doctrine of the English constitution, 
but not till after it had met stubborn opposition 
from men who attempted to shelter the rights of the 
individual from possible encroachments of govern- 
ment — men who, as Parker was writing, were draw- 
ing their swords for the Parliament.^'* 

'" Parker is not perfectly consistent in his ascription of arbitrary 
power to the Parliament. In places he tries to assure the people that, 
since the people have elected the Parliament, the Houses cannot usurp 



28 TEE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

Parker's followers and successors stated in more 
extreme terms than Parker himself the practical 
consequences flowing from this doctrine of parlia- 
mentary absolutism. In one point they added to 
Parker's argument: they made fuller use of the 
theory first advanced in Parliament's own decla- 
rations, that the judgment of the Lords and Com- 
mons in Parliament bound all persons within the 
jurisdiction of the court of Parliament. Such a 
judgment, pamphleteers argued, was law, per- 
haps until the Houses recalled it, certainly until 
the end of the Parliament; and, thanks to the bill 
against the dissolution of the Parliament, that 
limit was under the Parliament's own control. 
They were prompt to disclaim any responsibility 
on the part of Parliament to judge according to 
any particular known laws. The author of The 
Second Part of Vox Populi declared that in the 
case of extreme necessity that confronted the 
Parliament, it could apply the law of necessity. 
It was, he wrote, the height of absurdity to talk 

power without the assent of king and people. In a publication issued 
as late as August 26 (the Observations came out July 2), he limits the 
power of the two Houses to declare law to a necessity in which the king 
will not act with them. The Observator Defended, E. 114 (19), p. 2. In 
another publication (A Political Catechism, [May 20, 1643.] E. 104 (8). ) 
he speaks of the two Houses as mediating between king and people, and 
of the whole Parliament as representing a union of aristocratic, mon- 
archical, and democratic elements in the government (pp. 6, 10). In 
general, it may be said that he asserts formally that the people's 
grant of power to the king is irrevocable, and that the king has a 
real right to his powers; but his doctrine that in extreme cases Par- 
liament may interpret those powers for the kingdom's welfare sweeps 
away aU protection for the king's position. 



DOCTRINE OF PARLIAMENTARY SOVEREIGNTY 29 

of orders of Parliament being against the law. By 
what was the law established save by acts of Parlia- 
ment? Any lawyer who presumed to sit in judg- 
ment on those acts might as well claim that his 
power to do so was of divine right. Surely Eng- 
land had not reached the Antipodes, where chil- 
dren corrected their fathers, that inferior courts 
should prescribe rules to the highest! As for past 
precedents of parliamentary procedure, the Long 
Parliament had all the rights enjoyed by its pre- 
decessors, of establishing new precedents suit- 
able to the degeneracy of the time.'^ 

These writers depicted the subordination of the 
people to the Parliament as well-nigh absolute. 
Some of them, it is true, limited the extreme power 
of Parliament to the existing emergency, ^2 \^^^ 
all of them extended it to include rights over the 
estates of the subjects.^* The people could not 
plead rights of property against the Parliament 
as they could against the king; for they somehow 
had endowed Parliament wdth rights which they 
had always withheld from him. Says the author 
of A Disclaimer And Answer Of The Commons Of 
England: 

He knows nothing of the nature of Parliaments, that 
knows not that the House of Commons is absolutely in- 
trusted with our persons and estates, and by our Lawes 

31 The Kingdomes Case, May 1, 1643, E. 100 (9), p. 9; The Second 
Part of Vox PopuU, Oct. 31, 1642, E. 124 (34). 

'^ A Frivolous Paper, in Forme of a Petition, Dec. 13, 1642, E. 130 
(11). 

'* See also The Vindication Of The Parliament And their Proceedings, 
Oct. 15, 1642, E. 122 (19). 



30 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

invested with a power to dispose of them as they shall 
thinke meet, not onely by making new Lawes, but also 
as they are a great Court above all our ordinary Courts, 
to governe us, and determine of all things proper to the 
power and jurisdiction thereof in all things tending to 
the conservation of the Commonwealth and of our Re- 
ligion, Laws and Liberties, and to be limited to be only 
Proctors to speak for us is senselesse and ridiculous.'^ 

The official utterances of Parliament adopted 
but gradually such glosses by enthusiastic partisans 
on its earlier declarations. As late as November 2, 
1642, a parliamentary declaration denied that 
Parliament claimed the power to divest the king 
of "his ancient unquestionable undoubted rights," 
but at the same time reaffirmed in even broader 
terms its right to interpret in last resort the laws 
of the land. Men who were unskilled in the legal 
casuistry of the time must have been puzzled to 
know just what legal position and what relation 
to the king Parliament claimed. ^^ 

To add to the difficulty, not all the men who 
fought Parliament's paper battles interpreted the 
compact theory as Parker and his followers had 
done. A few writers deduced from it not parlia- 
mentary absolutism, but rather a narrow doctrine 
of popular sovereignty. The divergence of the 
two schools can be explained most easily by a 
running summary of the manner in which two or 
three typical authors stated the compact theory 

3* May 4, 1643, E. 100 (23), p. 2. See also William Prynne, The 
Soveraigne Power of Parliaments and Kingdomes: Divided into Foure 
Parts together with An Appendix, 1643, pt. I, p. 34; id., pf. IV, pp. 15, 
26, 27. Infra, p. 47. 

« Husband, p. 705. See Note III on p. 47. 



DOCTRINE OF PARLIAMENTARY SOVEREIGNTY 31 

and the rights that under it the Parliament 
enjoyed. 

Henry Parker's theory, while already stated, 
may here be summed up briefly. The people for 
their preservation had set over themselves a 
ruler empowered to provide for their security ac- 
cording to the law. In case he were derelict to his 
duty, the kingdom could provide for its security 
In Parliament. If a certain Discourse betweene A 
Resolved and a Doubtfull Englishman be Parker's — 
and certainly It carries to a logical conclusion the 
reasoning of his signed works — he was Inclined 
to handle the whole question of compact between 
king and people In an extremely off-hand way. 
To argue from the law of salus popiili — we are 
here summing up the discourse between the two 
Englishmen — the remote predecessors of seven- 
teenth-century Parliaments In setting up a king 
as chief magistrate, and supplying him (If they had 
done so) with a veto power, had acted for the 
safety of the people. Certainly they could not 
have Intended that the form of government they 
had established should work the nation's ruin. 
Nor could the fact that they had constituted a cer- 
tam form of government deprive their descendants 
of the right to alter anything In it that they found 
amiss. Accordingly, to Parker's mind, the Houses 
of Parliament whenever they thought It necessary 
were free to abrogate the ancestral compact with 
the king, and to abolish kingship. ^^ 

'^ The author of A Disclaimer And Answer, quoted above, has a 
suggestive paragraph on the origin of law in the kingdom. "In this 



32 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

A second wTiter unwittingly illustrated the pit- 
falls which lay hidden for parliamentary apologists 
in the compact doctrine when he emphasized, not 
the contrast and opposition of king and Parlia- 
ment, but their co-ordination." A compact be- 
tween king and people which sanctioned the co- 
ordinate existence of the three estates of king, 
Lords, and Commons was, he thought, of record in 
the unchangeable and fundamental laws of the 
land "consented to and contrived by the people 
in its first constitution, and since in every severall 
reigne confirmed both by mutuall oathes betweene 
King and People" (p. 7). When the WTiter added 
that the supreme power remained in the three 
estates conjointly, he described the English con- 
stitution with more accuracy than was advan- 
tageous to his argument. Accordingly he blundered 



Kingdorae the people originally agreed Lawes, such as they found by 
experience to be good for them, which were therefore called the Cus- 
tomes of the Kingdome, Customary Law, Common Law, not imposed 
upon them by Charters of Princes, or by Act of Parliament, but assumed 
by them, . . . and are not written as Charter and Parliament 
Lawes be; then they chose one from among them to be their King for 
the defence of their Lawes, bodies and goods, and for these purposes 
only they gave him power to governe them, and he cannot governe 
them by any other power or rule; and for the preservation of the Lawes 
against the Incroachments of the King . . . and for the making 
of such new Laws as should be requisite" they ordained Parliaments 
"and invested them with all power for the good of the Kingdome and 
people" (p. 17). This is Parker's doctrine, only a little more plainly 
put. There is a practically similar treatment of the law of England 
in The Subjects Liberty: Set Forth in the Royall and Politique Power of 
England, May 12, 1643, E. 101 (19), p. 6. Infra, p. 47. 

*^ Charles Herle, A Fuller Answer To A Treatise Written by Doctor 
Feme, Dec. 29, 1642, E. 244 (27), pp. 3, 4, 7, 8-10, 25. 



DOCTRINE OF PARLIAMENTARY SOVEREIGNTY 33 

out of his difficulty into a self-contradiction: the 
"reason," he said, of the people, which had con- 
stituted the original form of the government, re- 
mained in the two Houses. Accordingly, they 
might provide for the public safety in time of 
danger, and declare the law in final resort. The 
fallacy is plainly apparent. If a contract between 
A and X intrusts powers over X to A, B, and C, it 
certainly does not follow that B and C may inter- 
pret the contract to the exclusion of both A and X. 
The author's difficulty arose from the fact that 
he dared not ascribe active power of any sort to 
the people; therefore he could not say that X had 
hired A as his servant, or indeed distinguish X 
from B and C. Had he lodged the "reason" of 
the people elsewhere than in the two Houses, 
Royalists would have criticised his constitution 
as sure to end in an anarchical democracy. He 
protested bitterly against such an interpretation 
of the parliamentary position. 

A 2d question begg'd is, that in case the King and Parlia- 
ment should neither discharge their trusts, the people 
might rise and make resistance against both, a Position 
which no man I know maintaines, the Parliament is 
the peoples own consent, which once pass'd they cannot 
revoke, he still pursues his owne dreame [a polite reference 
to the Royalist, Dr. Feme] of the people's reassuming 
power, whereas we acknowledge no power can be imployed 
but what is reserved, and the people have reserved no 
power in themselves from themselves in Parliament. 

To a man with a fine sense of logic, the task of 
proving that thirty peers and three hundred mem- 
bers of the House of Commons rightfully exercised 



34 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

sovereign power without appeal was not an easy 
one. 

Other pamphleteers attempted to defend the 
proceedings of the Long Parliament without claim- 
ing for it complete supremacy, or employing fal- 
lacies to deny the possibility of an appeal to the 
people. Philip Hunton, author of A Treatise 
Of Monarchie,^^ in general agreed with the writers 
above mentioned both in his doctrine of compact 
and in representing Parliament as the place in 
which the compact must be revised and interpreted. 
He agreed with them further that the two Houses 
in certain cases of necessity — such as invasion or 
the subversion of the fundamental laws — might 
assume the power of government without the con- 
sent of the king, provided their actions evidently 
tended to the preservation of king and kingdom. 
At this point, however, when he was confronted 
with the question as to who should judge whether 
or not the laws were subverted, he saw difhculties 
that the other authors mentioned above had glided 
over. "To demand which Estate may challenge 
this power of finall determination of Fundamentall 
controversies arising betwixt them is to demand 
which of them shall be absolute. ^^ . . .Whereas I 

3M Treatise Of Monarchie, May 24, 1643, E. 103 (15), pp. 4, 17- 
18, 44, 66, 69-73. 

^' The omission is worth quoting in a note. "For I conceive that 
in the first part hereof, I have made it good that this finall utmost 
controversie arising betwixt the three Legislative Estates, can have no 
legal constituted Judge in a mixed government; for in such difference, 
he who affirmes that the people are bound to follow the Judgement 
of the King against that of the Parliament, destroyes the mixture into 



DOCTRINE OF PARLIAMENTARY SOVEREIGNTY 35 

take It to be an evident truth that In a mixed 
government no power Is to be attributed to either 
Estate which directly or by necessary consequence 
destroys the liberty of the other." Hunton's 
belief that the king was an Integral part of the 
state forbade him to Identify the "reason" of the 
two Houses with the "reason" of the state. A 
judgment of Parliament lacking the king's pre- 
sence and assent could not be called the king's 
judgment, because a similar judgment In his 
courts was so called ; for In his courts the king was 
represented whether he were present In person or 
not; but In Parliament he could be present only 
in person. Hunton could offer no constitutional 
remedy to prevent a deadlock between king and 
Parliament. He could only suggest an appeal 
to arms; if each individual rallied to the side he 
thought just, the opinion of the majority of the 
people would In the end prevail. 

Hunton was not the only apologist for Parlia- 
ment M^ho eschewed the extreme view of its suprem- 
acy. Thus, Scripture And Reason Pleaded For 
Defensive Armes,'^'^ a tract with official sanction, 
significantly condemned as unsound the analogy 
drawn by Royalist writers between resistance to 
the king by the people, and resistance to the head 

absolutenesse: And he who afirmes that they are bound to cleave to 
the Judgement of the two Houses against that of the King, resolves 
the Monarchic into an Aristocracie or Democracie according as he 
places this finall Judgement." P. 69. 

*" Scripture And Reason Pleaded For Defensive Amies . . . Published 
by divers . . . Divines. Printed by command of the Commons 
Committee on Printing, Apr. 14, 1643, E. 247 (22), pp. 14, 38-53. 



36 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

by the members; every man, it argued, was him- 
self a reasoning being. Parker would have hesi- 
tated long before ascribing to individual subjects 
the capacity to arrive at valid conclusions in 
politics. More than this. Scripture And Reason 
ascribed to the body of the people the right to save 
the state in case the three estates in Parliament 
conspired to ruin it. If, it concluded, the three 
estates disagreed as to which one was guilty of 
practice ruinous to the state, only the body of the 
people could decide between them. 

In the trace of Hunton and Scripture And Reason 
followed the most elaborate of the summaries of 
the parliamentary argument — Samuel Rutherford's 
Lex Rex. The essentials of Rutherford's position 
on the origin of government were not different 
from Parker's; but in discussing the compact 
between government and people, he lingered in 
his earlier pages over doctrines of social compact. 
He emphasized the fact that man was naturally 
free from subjection to magistracy. He admitted 
that the law of nature — a divine law — authorized 
government, and that man's power of ordaining 
government was, like his social propensities, a 
gift of God. But, Rutherford added, man was 
free to accept or reject this gift of God ; the union 
of men in society was purely voluntary; and 
subjection to magistrates, unlike the subjection of 
children to parents, was not natural. Though men 
were born subject to the laws of their society, 
one generation of men was not bound by the politi- 
cal action of a preceding one; the right to change 



DOCTRINE OF PARLIAMENTARY SOVEREIGNTY 37 

government was inalienable. Nevertheless, once 
a people had covenanted with a king, it was 
bound to obey him until he became tyrannical. 
Like Hun ton, Rutherford saw the difficulty of 
finding an interpreter for the covenant between 
people and king. His conclusion was that the 
covenant gave a mutual coercive power to king 
and people — the one to enforce it on the other; 
accordingly, that the people might know when 
they were empowered to rise and resist the tyranny 
of the monarch, the interpretation of the covenant 
must be left to the law of nature which, so Ruther- 
ford said, was easily to be understood by all people. 
In supposing that the verdict of the people would 
be unanimous, and a plain application of self- 
evident laws, Rutherford was somewhat less practi- 
cal than Hunton.'*^ 

As far as the actual political situation went, the 
doctrine of Hunton and Rutherford assigned little 
more political importance to the people than did 
the doctrine of Parker. Hunton, indeed, had 
merely recognized the fact that the individuals 
comprising the nation had taken the liberty of 
deciding between king and Parliament. In fact, 
the act against the dissolution of Parliament 
without its consent made impossible any expres- 
sion of the popular will save a military one. Even 
a new election would have given the opportunity 
for political self-expression to one class only of the 

*i Lex Rex: The Law and the Prince. A Dispute for the just Preroga- 
tive of King and People, Oct. 7, 1644, E. 11 (5), pp. 1, 2, 10, 36 ff., 78, 
81, 86, 91, 96-100, 213. 



38 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

nation. Constitutional forms by which the major- 
it}' might declare its pleasure in orderly fashion 
had 3'et to be devised ; and if such forms had existed, 
tlie nation lacked the political experience that 
would have enabled it to use them. Under the 
circumstances Parker's doctrine that the Parlia- 
ment was the nation articulate had much to com- 
mend it. Parliament might misrepresent the peo- 
ple's wishes; but neither precedent nor practice 
could afford any other means by which the wishes 
even of any considerable part of the kingdom might 
be learned. 

III. ROYALIST CRITICISM OF THE PARLIAMENTARY 
POSITION 

A Student of the Leveller political theories is 
concerned with the multitudes of Royalist pam- 
phlets printed after 1642 only in so far as they 
afford acute criticism of the parliamentary posi- 
tion. Such criticism first appears in the state 
papers dra^^^l from the king by the controversies 
that began with the Grand Remonstrance. At 
the moment when the Parliament abandoned the 
exposition of the fundamental laws of the land for 
the interpretation of the law of salus populi, 
declarations and answers under the king's name 
began to defend his prerogative b^' appeals to the 
customs of the realm. The king's answer to that 
part of the Grand Remonstrance, or rather the 
petition accompanying it, that related to the 
taking away of tlie votes of the bishops in the 
House of Lords, was "tliat their right is grounded 



DOCTRINE OP PARLIAMENTARY SOVEREIGNTY 39 

upon the fundamental! Law of the Kingdome, and 
constitution of Parliament."*^ The same phrase 
recurred again and again as the demands of Parlia- 
ment rose higher. It was the king's answer to 
Parliament's demand for the power over the militia; 
to its demand regarding the appointment of gover- 
nors of castles."*' The declarations drawn for his 
use by Edward Hyde steadily protested against 
the Parliament's enlarged use of its law-declaring 
powers. Thus in the answer to the Declaration 
of May 5, Hyde made the king ask that Parlia- 
ment state specifically the laws on which it based 
its militia ordinance, and tell where they were to 
be found.** If Parliament's marvellous secret 
now proved sufficient to divest the king of his 
rights, it might next be employed to take away 
the liberties of the subjects; for if the votes of the 
two Houses had such virtue in declaring new laws, 
they must be equally efficacious in repealing old 
ones. 

The Royalists, however, were strongest in appeal- 
ing to common sense against the inconsistencies of 
Parliament's theory and practice.*' They sub- 
jected the Parliament's somewhat inconsistent 
claims to searching analysis. Royalists put aside 
the theory that Parliament could do no wrong 
because it was the kingdom incarnate. They 

*2 Husband, p. 23. 

"Feb. 28, 1641/2. Husband, p. 91; Answer to the petition of 
January 28, 1641/2, Husband, p. 60. 

** Husband, p. 175. See abo pp. 242, 250. 

*^ Lack of space makes it necessary to ignore almost completely 
the Royalist theoretical argument. 



40 TEE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

pointed out that in fact the two Houses were some 
three hundred EngHshmen who were exercising 
as real rights of government over the rest of their 
countrymen as ever the king had done. They 
insisted on regarding the Houses as de facto a 
governing body, and quite distinct from the body 
governed. From such assumptions the Royalists 
drew unpleasant practical conclusions. If the peo- 
ple might on occasion revoke the grant of power 
they had made to a king, why could they not revoke 
the grant of power they had made to their repre- 
sentatives?*^ In empowering the members of the 
House of Commons to act as their proxies, had the 
electors dreamed that they were empowering the 
members to do more than to sit and to act as 
Parliament men had acted time out of mind? 
Had the electors ever believed that they were 
yielding themselves up to the unrestrained wills 
and judgments of those whom they elected? 
If Parliament was the whole kingdom representa- 
tively, how did it come that non-freeholders and 
nine parts of the men of the kingdom were excluded 
from the choice of members? How had persons 
without votes conveyed any power to the members 
of the House of Commons? If the people had the 
right of self-preservation as against an act of the 
king that they judged destructive to themselves, 
why did they not enjoy the same right in respect 
to a parliamentary ordinance? The Houses were 
assuming to take measures for the nation's pres- 

'^ Animadversions Upon Those Notes Which The La^e Observator 
hath published, July 9, 1642, E. 107 (22), p. 12. 



DOCTRINE OF PARLIAMENTARY SOVEREIGNTY 41 

ervation that were not warranted by the recorded 
laws; was not this exactly the power claimed by 
the king in the case of ship money P^'' 

The Royalists were assiduous in attempts to 
sow dissensions in the ranks of the enemy. In 
familiar conversational style, they told the plain 
people that they were being used as catspaws to 
gratify with riches and honor the avarice and ambi- 
tion of nobles and commons/* They insisted that 

" A View Of A Printed Book. Jan. 26, 1642/3, E. 245 (22), pp. 25 ff. 
There was really a marked resemblance between the position of the 
king in 1629-1640 and that of Parliament after 1642. The following 
extract states the parallel clearly and in a style in which the Royalists 
excelled. The title, A Letter From A Grave Gentleman once a Member 
of this House of Commons, to his friend, remaining a Member of the 
same House in London, gives the setting of the pamphlet. May 19, 
1643, E. 102 (13). 

"How often have you told me, (when you have heard the Courtiers 
argue that without such a Power in the Crowne, no Parliament sitting, 
the Kingdome might be unavoydably destroyed) that with or without 
that Power We should be liable to mighty dangers but the wisdom of 
the Law had avoided those most that were likely to come oftenest; 
That now besides, the Question was not what was best to be Law, but 
what was Law; That Arguments from Convenience are good considera- 
tions in framing of Lawes or founding of States, but that the State 
being framed it was most ridiculous and dangerous to retyre from the 
Lawe to a disputable convenience or Necessity, and put our selves back 
again into the same Maze of Debates and Questions, which Lawes 
were framed to be rules to us to deliver us from." 

" "I must plainly tell you," runs one of these, "there was never any 
civill War, wherein the good of the people was not most cryed up, and 
yet least intended. For assure your selves, the Interests of discon- 
tented Nobles or Commons, that have gained a greater power in your 
affections, are not the same with you of lower ranke, and therefore 
they do but abuse you, and make you with hazard of your Estates, 
and lives, and souls, cut out way to their ends". An Answer To . . . 
Plain English, Feb. 18, 1642/3, E. 89 {Z5), p. 8. 

Still another cleverly sums up the logical weakness of the Parlia- 



42 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

Parliament's course was leading the nation into 
democracy — using a word that ordinarily connot- 
ed what anarchy does today. Such attempts to 
arouse class feeling were probably not unfruitful. 
Undoubtedly the insinuations stuck in men's 
minds and in 1645 and 1646 induced the Levellers 
and their opponents the more readily to put the 
worst interpretation on each other's motives. 

In fact the political thinking and political prac- 
tice of 1 640-1 645 partly determined the course of 
the Leveller movement. Those years developed 
an irritating condition of affairs, and suggested a 
train of argument for attacking it. Parliament's 
members had assiduously lectured the kingdom 
on the existence of fundamental laws and the 
heinousness of endeavoring to abrogate or evade 
them. Then, by methods of indirection similar 
to those it had condemned. Parliament had extended 
its right of interpreting the fundamental laws till 
it had interpreted them into nullity. To justify 
Parliament's action, its supporters had stated a 
theory of parliamentary absolutism too unblushing 
for even Parliament to adopt in full. They had 
based their theory on the postulate that govern- 
ment derived its authority from its compact with 

ment's actual position. "Seeing you are pleased to proceed thus farre, 
we beseech you make one ordinance more. That both Houses shall 
be a Corporation, to take Lands and goods to them and their Suc- 
cessors, and that they shall bee the onely Projectors of all the Lands 
and goods in the Kingdome, and when any of that Corporation dies, 
Mies quoties, the survivor and none else shall choose a successor to 
perpetuity." A Complaint To The House of Commons, Jan. 2, 1612/3. 
E. 244 (31), p. 19. 



DOCTRINE OF PARLIAMENTARY SOVEREIGNTY 43 

the nation ; and after their writings had familiarized 
men with abstract reasoning of the sort, other 
books by parliamentary writers had shown that 
the compact theory could not logically lead to the 
conclusion that the Houses were above the law. 
Rather it must lead to a democracy, however 
narrow and limited. The Royalists insisted that 
this conclusion was the only one possible. They 
stirred up class feeling in the parliamentary ranks; 
they undoubtedly began to teach men to distrust the 
arbitrary power assumed by Parliament. From 
1642 to 1645 Englishmen were continually irritated 
by Parliament's absolutist claim.s and practice. 
At the same time, they were reminded that there 
were excellent arguments against an absolute 
Parliament — arguments based on the laws of nature 
and the fundamental laws of the land. 

NOTES 

I. The Juridical Function of Parliament 

I have reserved to this note a few significant utterances by 
parliamentary leaders on the judicial power of Parliament. In- 
stances in which Parliament is termed a court are frequent enough. 
"This great and high Court," said Sir Harbottle Grimston in his Guild 
hall speech, January 6, 1641/2, "is not only the powerfullest of all other 
Courts whatsoever ....". E. 200 (5). Instances in which 
the typical function of Parliament is described in terms applicable to 
a court may occasionally be found also. "To remove therefore this 
uncertainty," wrote Henry Parker, "which is the mother of all injustice, 
confusion, and publike dissention, it is most requisite that this grand 
Councell and Treshault Court (of which none ought to thinke dis- 
honourably) would take these Ardua Regni, these weighty and danger- 
ous difficulties, into serious debate, and solemnly end that strife, which 
no other place of Judicature can so effectually extinguish." The Case 
of Shipmony, p. 2. 



44 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

Pym's speech on the declaration of grievances, March 31, 1642, 
may be cited also: "That the house of commons considered that the 
law of God and the law of the land, was only fit for the representatives 
of the body of the kingdom to judge of; for if there must be idolatry 
against the law of God, it concerns them much to resist it, less they 
should incur the divine wrath; and nothing concerns them more than 
to see the laws of this kingdom executed: herein we may displease 
Man, we shall not God. For the Public Faith and League, it is less 
than that with God; we must respect the higher, and not the lower; 
no contract can oblige against the law of God, neither can any contract 
bind us against (he law of this kingdom." Parliamentary History, 
II, 1163. The allusion is to the treaties with France, guaranteeing 
the queen liberty of worship. 

It is very interesting to note that frequently parliamentary cham- 
pions couple the offenses of bishops and judges as alike usurpations 
on the juridical power of the Parliament. Of the bishops, Nathaniel 
Fiennes said in a speech of December, 1640, on the canons of that year: 
"the framers of these Canons have assumed unto themselves a Parlia- 
mentary powe'-, and that too in a very high degree, for they have taken 
upon them to define what is the power of the King, what the liberty 
of the Subjects, and what propriety he hath in his goods. If this 
bee not proper to a Parliament, I know not what is." He considered 
the convocation's action in prescribing an oath a usurpation of a parUa- 
mentary power higher even than the legislative; for this oath might 
bind individual Parliament members against altering a thing that Par- 
liament had the right to alter. Fiennes's speech is in E. 196 (35). 
As to the judges, St. John in his argument before the Lords on ship 
money took the position that the judges in their opinion on ship money 
had reversed on the point of the king's power to overrule the known 
law a decision that ParUament had itself made in the Petition of Right; 
a lower court had had the presumption to reverse the decisions of a 
higher. Nalson, An Impartial Collection, I, 712. Other utterances on 
the action of the judges in the ship money case might be quoted. For 
instance, Harbottle Grimston said April 16, 1640, "and in the third year 
of His Majesties Reign that now is, we had more than a Confirmation of 
it [Magna Charta]; for we had an Act declaratory past; and then to put 
it out of aU question and dispute for the future. His Majesty by his 
gracious Answer, Soil Droit fait comme est desire, invested it with the 
Title of Petition of Right. What expositions contrary to that Law of 
Right, have some men given to the undermining the liberty of the Sub- 
jects, with new invented subtil distinctions, and assuming to them- 
selves a power, (I know not where they had it) out of Parliament to 



DOCTRINE OP PARLIAMENTARY SOVEREIGNTY 45 

supersede, annihilate and make void the Laws of the Kingdom?" Nal- 
son, I, 320. Waller in his speech on Justice Crawley's impeachment, 
July 6, 1641, said: "But this man, adding despaire to our misery, tells 
us from the Bench, that Ship-money was a Right so inhaerent in the 
Crowne, that it would not be in the power of an Act of Parlament to 
take it away. . . . so by this declaration of his he endevours to 
prevent the Judgement of your Lordships too, and to confine the power 
of a Parlament, the onely place where this mischiefe might be redrest : 
. . . And because this man has had the boldnesse to put the power 
of Parlament in ballance with the opinion of the ludges ..." 
E. 198 (37), pp. 3-7. Lord Brooke ascribed to both judges and bishops 
a power of declaring law, but he distinguished it from the higher power 
in king and Parliament of making law. A Discourse Opening The 
Nature Of That Episcopacie, Which Is Exercised In England, Nov. 
1641, E 177 (22), p. 29. 

IL Parliamentary Applications of Political Theory before 1642 

In the text of Chapter I it was necessary for the sake of brevity to 
omit any discussion of parliamentary arguments prior to July, 1642, 
that were based on political theory. However, before that year the 
parliamentary party had drawn arguments from principles of political 
science as well as from principles of constitutional law. One such 
principle was salus populi suprema lex. As early as September of 1640 
Calybute Downing had hinted that Parliaments as well as kings might 
find useful the distinction between the rule of government and the rule 
of law. He reminded his hearers that as princes claimed not onJy 
jura dominationis but also arcana dominationis , so there were arcana, 
latitudes, allowed for the safety of the body of the state. The Com- 
mons ordered the sermon printed, though probably, if one may judge 
from the place in which Thomason bound it, not till the spring of 1641. 
A Sermon preached to the Renowned Company of the Artillery, E. 157 (4j, 
pp. 29 ff. 

To Strafford's avowed belief in the king's power to disregard the letter 
of the law for the sake of public safety in time of eminent danger, Pym 
retorted by assuring the Lords that the heinousness of Strafford's of- 
fense would best appear "if it be examined by that Law, to which he 
himself appealed, that Universal, that Supreme Law, Salus Populi." 
"This," he continued, "is the Element of all Laws, out of which they 
are derived, the End of all Laws, to which they are designed, and in 
which they are perfected." Rushworth, VIII, 661. The author of 
The Case of Shipmony had agreed that salus populi was the "supreame 



46 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

of all humane laws, ... for rather than a Nation shall perish, 
anything shall be held necessary, and legal by necessity." P. 7. Par- 
liament itself gave the doctrine of salus poptdi official sanction when it 
justified the Militia Ordinance on the ground of its own right to inter- 
pret the law of England by the dictates of public safety. 

The parliamentary party in the early da,ys of the Parliament was 
the more cautious in supporting their position with arguments drawn 
from the law of God and the law of nature because both had been in- 
dustriously used to support the unwarrantable extensions of prerogative 
power. Not only had the Judges in the matter of ship money affirmed 
the right of the king, in the case of a great and declared necessity of 
which he was judge, to override the ordinary laws of the kingdom, but 
Banks in his argument on ship money had declared this right so inher- 
ent in the king that it was not derived to him from the people, but had 
been reserved to him when positive laws first began. "All Magistracy," 
he said, "is of nature, and Obedience and Subjection is of nature; and 
before any positive Laws were written, or any municipal Law, people 
were governed by the Law of Nature." The obno.xious canons of 1640 
declared that "Tribute, and Custome, and Aide, and Subsidie, and all 
manner of necessary support and supply, be respectively due to Kings 
from their subjects by the Law of God, Nature, and Nations." Rush- 
worth, II, 548; Constitutions and Canons Ecdesiasticall. 

The parliamentary party, therefore, generally eschewed the doctrine 
that the law of nature was more than a very general principle govern- 
ing the relations between people and prince. They relied on the more 
definite "laws of the land." "The Law of Nature," says Henry Parker 
in A Discourse Concerning Puritans, "best determines, that all Princes 
being publike Ministers for the common good, that their authority 
ought to be of sufficient latitude for that common good; and since 
Scripture is not expresse concerning that latitude, as to all people, the 
same not being to all alike necessary, the severall Lawes ojf severall 
Countries best teach that certaine latitude." P. 4. Parker regarded 
the book in which Samuel "wrote the manner" of Saul's kingdom as 
possibly the constitution of the Jewish monarchy; unfortunately it 
had not survived! 

Fiennes voiced the Parliament's distrust of ecclesiastical applica- 
tions of the law of nature. "But there was somewhat in it that these 
Divines aimed at, I suppose it was this. If Kings were of Divine Right, 
as the Office of a Pastour, in the Church, or founded in the prime Lawes 
of Nature, as the power of a Father in a Family; then it would certainly 
follow, that they should receave the fashion and manner of their govern- 
ment, onely from the Prescript of Gods Word, or of the Lawes of Nature, 



DOCTRINE OF PARLIAMENTARY SOVEREIGNTY 47 

and consequently if there be no text neither of the Old nor New Testa- 
ment, nor yet any Law of Nature, that Kings may not make Lawes 
without Parliaments, they may make Lawes without Parliaments, and 
if neither in the Scripture, nor in the Law of Nature, Kings be forbidden 
to lay taxes or any kind of impositions upon their people without con- 
sent in Parliament, they may doe it out of Parliament. . . . (Sir) 
if they bee due by the Law of God and of nature, they are due, though 
there bee no act of Parliament for them, nay (Sir) if they be due by 
such a right, a hundred acts of Parliaments cannot take them away, 
or make them undue." E. 196 (35). True, Fiennes later himself 
pronounces the "Et Cetera Oath" against the laws of nature. 

Of course the parliamentary champions prior to 1642 did not rely 
solely on the fundamental laws as they stood revealed in common-law 
precedents. Some theory of the origin of government, which afforded 
a historical background for these precedents, must from the beginning 
have been in their minds. Only indistinct traces of it can be found. 
In 1641, St. John had spoken of the laws of the realm as "instituted 
at the first, and freely assented unto, and chosen by their Ancestors, 
for preservation of themselves, and us their discendants in our per- 
sons, lives, and estates." The Speech or Declaration Of Mr. St. John, 
E. 196 (1). 

Pym in his speech against Strafford had held up as particularly heinous 
among his offenses his declaration that Ireland as a conquered nation 
was under absolute subjection; for, as England had been conquered, 
the same reasoning was applicable to it. If the various compacts be- 
tween conqueror and conquered, by which the conqueror's might had 
been transformed into the king's lawful right were at the mercy of the 
king's whim, the subjects were not only deprived of their legal safe- 
guards, but were also reinstated in their old right of resistance to the 
conqueror. Rush worth, VIII, 662. 

III. Parker's Doctrines 

The comparison of Parker's political philosophy when stated in terms 
of parliamentary absolutism with his doctrine of the supremacy of the 
civil power over the ecclesiastical will be instructive. 

The True Grounds of Ecclesiasticall Regiment, published by him in 
November of 1641, is throughout a splendid glorification of the majesty 
and sufficiency of power — of the coercive might of civil government in 
contrast with ecclesiastical. Parker will allow no division of supreme 
power between church and state. Churchmen can show no grant of 
legislative power, either from God or from the assent of the body of 



48 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

the Church itself. Even God had not imposed his law upon fiis 
people through Moses without their consent. No churchman, says 
Parker, can anywhere find warrant for a power of coercion similar to 
that with which the members of a civil society have endowed their 
rulers. Above all, there can be no power in the Church to discipline 
civil rulers. The glory of the civil power is its origin in the consent 
of the people. Before the full majesty of the king, sitting in Parlia- 
ment and therefore invested with that supreme power that the people 
had not granted even to the king himself alone, Parker stands in awe. 
Indeed he is almost pagan. He sweeps away all apostolic preced- 
dents with the remark that temporary expedients were necessary when 
the magistrates were not Christians; and he considers that if Caesar 
had aided the early Christian church, he would have effected more for 
the propagation of Christian doctrine than all the apostles, bishops, 
and evangelists! E. 176 (18), pp. 24, 36-38, 61, 72, 91, 92. 

While on the subject of Parker we may notice a pamphlet, very 
possibly written by him, and designed to stir the Houses to a decided 
stand on their sovereignty. The title is A Discourse betweene A Re- 
solved and a Doubtftdl Englishman. Dec. 3, 1642, E. 128 (41). Apart 
from the matter, the sole evidence for Parker's authorship is that in 
format the tract is identical with some of his signed works. 

The resolved Englishman in the course of the discourse vigorously dis- 
claims any negative voice in the king as absurd and unbearable. The 
king was merely the highest magistrate, and the Parliament oversaw, 
disposed of, and displsiced all magistrates (p. 2). Doubtful retorts that 
at any rate the Parliament calls itself the king's great council, and what 
are private men to do in such a case but to believe it and to obey the 
king if his commands and those of Parliament clash ? "To my minde 
now," says Resolved, "I see some reasons inducing the Parliament to 
use such low expressions, and humble tearmes .... One reason 
may be the long disuse of the Parliamentary power, occasioned by a 
strong hand borne over them by the King, and most of his Predecessours 
. , . . so that now in our present age, men esteeme of the Par- 
liamentary power, iust as Kings would have them .... Though 
no man can deny these things [the supremacy of ParUament] to be 
iust and reasonable, yet when they are spoken to the people, they grow 
angry, and are offended, and thinke it to be no lesse then treason; 
and therefore I conceive the Parliament ib their addresses unto the 
King have used such language as you have recited .... I 
have observed the ParUament have revealed their power but by de- 
grees, and only upon necessity, that necessity might make the people 
know that that power was iust and reasonable." Doubtful, who ap- 



DOCTRINE OF PARLIAMENTARY SOVEREIGNTY 49 

pears to speak for the author, replies that when Parliament by sound 
reasons shall show it is the supreme power, and bound only to observe 
the supreme law of the people's safety and declare the position "not 
to be argued against by any condition of men whatsoever, upon the 
highest punishment. Then shall you see that I, and such as I am, 
will as readily comply with their commands, as you, or any the most 
Religious man in the Kingdome." 

As a friendly criticism of Parliament's policy the Discourse is of 
great interest. 



CHAPTER II 

The Ecclesiastical Supremacy of Parliament 
VERSUS THE Law of God, i 642-1 646 

npHE earlier constitutional position of the Long 
-^ Parliament was not the only source from 
which the Levellers might have drawn a reverence 
for paramount law. The Levellers generally were 
Independents; and by 1645 the Independents were 
the recognized advocates of the idea that there was 
a supreme law in the ecclesiastical world, past the 
power of Parliament to override. Independency, 
as par excellence the ecclesiastical system of para- 
mount law, gave both form and content to the 
Leveller platform. 

It is important, therefore, to understand exactly 
what opinions on church government distinguished 
the Independents from their contemporaries. The 
ecclesiastical controversies surrounding the work 
of the Westminster Assembly offer a mine of valu- 
able material for this purpose. That Assembly, it 
will be remembered, was called by Parliament in 
1643 to substitute a new church government for 
episcopacy. It drew up a Presbyterian model that 
met strenuous opposition from the few Independent 
members of the Assembly, finally passed the Parlia- 
ment in such weakened form as to be disappointing 
to the Presbyterians, and in the event never went 
into effect. An analysis of the struggle over the 
Assembly's proposals will reveal the distinctive 

50 



ECCLESIASTICAL SUPREMACY OF PARLIAMENT 51 

ideas of the Independents and, more important 
still, the political and constitutional conclusions 
and analogies to which they naturally led. 

The exact distinction between Presbyterians and 
Independents in 1643 appeared in their definition 
of a church — their designation of the body which 
should judge, censure, and excommunicate pro- 
fessing Christians. 1 In theology the Presbyterians 
and the Independents of the Westminster Assembly 
and New England were alike orthodox Calvinists. 
They were alike in that each considered his ecclesi- 
astical system ordained by Scripture and therefore 
of divine right ; they differed only as to which system 
was jure divino! The Independents believed that 
the government of the church as above defined 
rested solely with the officers and members of the 
individual congregation — the unit in which Chris- 
tians enjoyed the administration of the "ordi- 
nances" of preaching, the Lord's Supper, and bap- 
tism. The Presbyterians on the other hand con- 
sidered the church for purposes of government to 
be an assembly of the elders and officers of the 
various congregations in a district or a nation. ^ 

1 The proposition over which there was the fiercest debate in the 
Westminster Assembly was, that a presbytery (the term is used both by 
Independents and Presbyterians in tlie sense of an assembly of elders) 
might be over several churches or congregations. It was debated Feb- 
ruary 2-March 13, 1643/4. John Lightfoot's notes of the assembly 
debates, in his Works (1823 ed.), XIII, 131 ff. (This is hereafter cited 
as "Lightfoot".) 

^ The Scotch commissioners who sat in the Assembly went so far as to 
admit that the elders of a particular congregation could transact busi- 
ness of that congregation. According to Robert Baillie, one of their 



52 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

No Other comprehensive distinction between the 
two polities can be made. For instance, without 
numerous quaHfications, the statement that Pres- 
byterianism was aristocracy and Independency 
democracy is inaccurate. At least it would not 
hold good for the five Holland ministers who cham- 
pioned Independency in the Assembly,* or for John 
Cotton and the New England divines who took 
part in the pamphlet controversies of the time. 
Robert Browne, the Separatist, it is true, had 
devised a church order that internally was a virtual 

number, they later regretted this concession. Baillie, Letters and Jour- 
nals, II, 182. (Cited hereafter as "Baillie".) 

The Presbyterians and Independents were in substantial agreement 
in their enumeration of church officers. The Independent pastor and 
teacher found their counterpart in the preaching elders and doctors of 
the Westminster Directory. Independent and Presbyterian agreed in 
the designation of a lay elder or ruhng elder to bear rule over the con- 
gregation in association with the elders who "labored in the word and 
doctrine." The Independents of the Assembly insisted that by Scrip- 
ture the duties of teacher and pastor should be exercised by distinct 
persons. The Assembly rejected this proposition as far as it was based 
on divine right, but admitted the excellence of the distinction in prac- 
tice. Baillie, II, 110. The Presbyterians themselves were divided on 
the point of the divine right of the ruling elder. Nye, one of the Inde- 
pendents, tried to base the office on grounds of human expediency. 
Lightfoot, pp. 60-69, 73. Shaw (I, 161) is scarcely right in saying 
the Independents opposed the institution of ruling elders jure divino. 

* The five Holland ministers had been pastors of exiled English 
churches that had found refuge in Holland before the downfall of the 
Laudian system. There the ministers had worked out a congregational 
form of church government. They were Thomas Goodwin (to be dis- 
tinguished from John Goodwin who was a radical Independent, suspected 
of Socinianism), Sidrach Simpson (to be distinguished from a certain 
"Symson the Antinomian" against whom the Commons later found it 
necessary to proceed for unUcensed preaching), Philip Nye, William 
Bridge, and Jeremiah Burroughs. 



ECCLESIASTICAL SUPREMACY OF PARLIAMENT 53 

democracy. But in 1643 the Independents dis- 
claimed the name of Separatists or Brownists, and 
professed to steer a middle course between democ- 
racy and the supposed aristocracy of the Presby- 
terian system. Actually the Independents colored 
with a tinge of democratic doctrine much undemo- 
cratic practice.'* 

In practice there could be but little difference in 
the real power enjoyed by the membership of 
Presbyterian and Independent congregations. The 
Independents hedged about with restrictions the 
right of the congregation to elect its officers.* True, 
they taught that business should be transacted and 
expulsions performed by the officers in the pres- 
ence of the congregation; but actually they per- 
mitted the congregation only to assent to the de- 
crees of its officers; or at most respectfully to rea- 
son with them and endeavor to convince them that 
they did amiss.^ A New England congregation 

* See Cotton's Keyes of the Kingdom of Heaven, p. 36 (reprint of 1852). 
Cotton called the church government of New England mixed as having 
monarchy in Christ's headship, aristocracy in the elders, and democracy 
in the powers of the congregation. The Way of the Churches Cleared, 
Feb. 9, 1647/8, E. 426 (8), p. 100. 

* John Cotton in The Way of the Churches Cleared (p. 39), says that 
a church has not power to choose whom it lists, but only whom Christ 
has chosen. On such a point the pillars of the church are apt to have 
a decided opinion! 

^ Cotton, in the Keyes of the Kingdom of Heaven (p. 52), says that the 
elders may allow men to speak in the churches or put them to silence if 
they speak amiss "and yet when the Elders themselves do lie under of- 
fence, or under suspicion of it, the Brethren have liberty to require satis- 
faction, in a modest manner, concerning any pubHc breach of rule." 
See also The Way of the Churches Cleared, pp. 100, 102, and Thomas 
Goodwin in Lightfoot, pp. 151-152. 



54 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

exerted little more influence on the policy of the 
church than it would have done under a Presby- 
terian system. 

Nor can it be said that Presbyterianism was 
synodical and Independency non-synodical. The 
Independents admitted the excellence of synods 
made up of the elderships of the various churches 
of a neighborhood; and these synods could and 
did advise individual churches on many points 
connected with their internal affairs, and that in 
an age when advice from an authority was in prac- 
tice equivalent to a command. Synods could sug- 
gest expedients calculated to bring order to a dis- 
tracted congregation, even to the expulsion of a 
member. And if the congregation refused to act 
on such "advice" the synod could recommend to 
other churches that they forbear communion with 
the offending church. The Independent synod 
could pronounce finally on matters of doctrine. 
It could not excommunicate or censure as a Presby- 
terian synod or assembly could, but it could recom- 
mend these measures to the congregations.^ It 
could not perhaps denounce contumacious conduct 
to the magistrate for punishment; but in a land 

^ Baillie (II, 147) states that the Independents would adnait a pres- 
bytery (here of course the word is appUed to a synodical assembly) to 
be an ordinance of God, and capable of calling elders or ministers or any 
persons in its jurisdiction before it to examine and rebuke them for of- 
fenses in doctrine and life; and if need were, capable of turning them 
over to the civil magistrate. Cotton would not have gone so far. Ac- 
cording to Baillie the Independents would even admit a synod's power 
of declaring doctrine. ' 



ECCLESIASTICAL SUPREMACY OF PARLIAMENT 55 

like New England, where the magistrates were in 
sympathy with the established church order, synods 
met by permission of the civil authorities and acted 
in harmony with them. 

If the Independents agreed, however, with the 
Presbyterians as to the lawfulness and expediency 
of synods, they dissented from the Presbyterian 
"subordination of assemblies." In a nationally 
organized Presbyterian church there was a succes- 
sion of representative assemblies, the assembly of 
the classis above the session of the parish, the 
provincial synod above the assembly of the classis, 
and the national synod above all. Essential as 
such a subordination of assemblies was to the ex- 
istence of a national church of Presbyterian type, 
it could not easily be deduced from the New 
Testament. The Presbyterians, therefore, were 
forced to defend it as agreeable to the light of 
reason.^ The Independents condemned this hier- 
archy of assemblies as not only dangerous to the 
civil government, but also unwarranted by the 

* The proposition of the Assembly regarding synods is here given in 
part. It illustrates the caution with which they handled this part of 
their system. "It is lawful, and agreeable to the Word of God, that 
there be a subordination of congregational, classical, provincial, and 
national assemblies; that so appeals may be made from the inferior to 
the superior, respectively. Proved from Matt, xviii, which holding 
forth the subordination of an offending Brother, to a particular church; 
it doth also, by a parity of reason, hold forth the subordination of the 
congregation, to superior assemblies. And it is agreeable to the light of 
nature . . . ." Ben]a.rmn Hsnahury, Historical Memorials relating 
to the Independents, II, 496. For the answer of the Independents see 
pp. 497 ff . Herle, in the Independency on Scripture of the Iridependeiicy 
of Churdies, argues similarly. Summarized in Hanbury, II, 1 68. 



51 T9E LETELLER MOTEXEXT 

complete and perfect law that Ouist had laid do>A^ 
lor las ckurdi.* 

The Independeiits based their whole ecclesiasti- 
cal procedare od the words of Matthew. x\iii: 15-1 7, 
•"Moteover if thy brother ^lall trespass against 
thee, so and tefl him his fauh bem^een thee and 
him alone; if he diall hear thee thou hast gained 
^y brother. But if he wfll not hear thee, then 
take widi thee one or t«t> more that in the mouth 
of two or three witnesses e\^er\- word may be estab- 
fished. And if he shall ne^ect to hear them. teQ 
it unto the church; but if he neglect to hear the 
church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man 
and a pubfican.*' In thse few fines, the Inde- 
p cn d ents said. Christ had bequeathed fab churdi 
a supreme law for its fenn and government ; and 
ihcy daimed that the congregational sysion was 
the necessary consequence of the i:rr-LTf> . f rh^r 
lav. 

Since Clir^*s law requirec Th:.: 
tnn have a part in censures ^ 
the Independents were neceso .^ :j: - 

rower church membersfaqi tjb.. 
The Pre^y^rian system adr. 

QtaBiH»90ci.4J]«4,£.MP9.».2> The 




lis 4b«& kii dhd^Kd Ike aMiMri dMck«E Hk len^ ami 

kE «■» nfis m lis phne. Ja Jmmm * Sim .Mrsmmats, Z- 

MOMMMliik, Jdk is. IMT, £. 3B QBf^ ^ H> Uhne srr 
GritfceI^cr^ifpi(btailE Sob sife Im^Rr iv tiJ 




ECCLESIASTICAL SUPREMACY OF PARUAMENT 57 

an}' person neither ignorant of essential Christian 
doctrine, nor of a scandalous mode of life. The 
two tests were appropriate for a national church — 
a church which admitted to its communion all 
adult members of a nation, save such as she held 
back for discipline or instruction. To such com- 
municants, however, the Presb>terian Church could 
not commit the powers of excommunication, eccle- 
siastical censure, and ordination; these it reser\'ed 
to the synods and representative assemblies of the 
eldership. On the other hand, since the Inde- 
pendent Church had to allow its members a share 
in the "keys," it could admit to membership only 
persons giving satisfactor>" proof of their spiritual 
regeneracy; they must be saints, as the term was, 
persons distinguished in the communit>' as li\'ing 
the lives of regenerate Christians. ^° 

Such a restriction of church membership made 
necessary a de\4ce by which the saints in a cora- 
munit}' could associate together in church fellow- 
ship. The device which the Independents adopted 
wdLS co\'enant. An Independent church began 
with a covenant of the future members, one vdxh. 
another and all with Christ, to walk together as 
a church. Each new member admitted by elders 
and congregation renewed this covenant, thereby 
subjecting himself to the spiritual censures of his 
fellow members, administered in accord with 
Christ's lav,-. The covenant of an Independent 
church was its basic law.^^ 

" See Note I on p. S4. 

""In an Independent congregation, all the members hy free and 
voluntary consent have submitted themselves to the regulation and 



58 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

The internal life of an Independent church was 
felt to be regulated by a law past the church's 
power to change. The offices of the church had 
authority by divine right inherent in them ar.d 
beyond the power of the people to diminish. The 
eldership or presbytery in an Independent church 
had power coordinate with that of the congrega- 
tion. The congregation could no more cast out 
the presbytery, or any member of it without the 
assent of the others, than the presbytery itself 
could cast out of the church the whole congrega- 
tion. Independent ecclesiastical polity was a bal- 
ance of authorities regulated by a supreme law.^^ 

order of the whole body, or, (which is the same) of the major part of it ; 
and therefore this body having received a lawfull power in a lawfull way, 
for the reiglement of her respective members, may lawfully exercise it 
according to the tenor and true intent of the delegation of it." John 
Goodwin, Innocency and Truth Triumphing together, Jan. 8, 1644/5, 
E. 24 (8). p. 6. 

" The form of such a visible church, I conceive to be the relation which 
by their mutual consent, is raised between them for spiritual ends; by 
which it is that they have power of jurisdiction, and may and ought to 
'judge' those 'that are within': which jurisdiction no man can, lawfully, be 
subjected unto but by his o-vvn agreement. The superiority of jurisdic- 
tion, either in things spiritual or temporal, — if it be not natural, as the pa- 
ternal, — must be voluntarily subjected unto, or it is usurped and tyran- 
nical; therefore to raise this relation, which gives a power of judging, 
there must be a voluntary submission of themselves one to another 
testified by some act, whether you will call it a covenant, or consent, or 
agreement, between fit members for such ends." The Saints Apology, 
1644, quoted in Hanbury, II, 231. See also Cotton, Way of the Churches 
in New England, Apr. 4, 1645, E. 276 (13), pp. 1^. 

" Nye and Goodwin in their introduction to Cotton's Keys of the 
Kingdom of Heaven opened, p. 5. "And whereas this corporation con- 
sisteth both of Elders and Brethren .... His scope is to dem- 
onstrate a distinct and severall share and interest of power, in matters 
of common concernement, vouchsafed to each of these, and dispersed away 



ECCLESIASTICAL SUPREMACY OF PARLIAMENT 59 

Yet Independency did not, like Presbyterianism, 
imply the existence of a ministerial caste. Among 
Presbyterians, the preaching elders of a presby- 
terial assembly set a new preaching elder apart 
for his work by the imposition of hands. The 
Independents on the contrary assigned the work of 
ordination to the congregation over which a min- 
ister was to preside. More significantly, they in- 
sisted that ordination must not be general, but 
should be to a specific work in a specific place. 
John Cotton, noted in England as the ablest of 
Puritan divines, was ordained teacher of the Boston 
church in New England by imposition of the hands 
of John Wilson, the pastor, and of Nowell and 
Leverett, the ruling elders. ^^ 

[among?] both by charter from the Lord .... He giving unto the 
Elders or Presbytery a binding power of Rule and Authority proper 
and peculiar unto them; and unto the Brethren, distinct and apart, an 
interest of power and priviledge to concurre with them, and that such 
affairs should not be transacted, but with the joj^it agreement of both, 
though out of a different right." See also Lightfoot, pp. 151, 152, Feb. 
14,30,1643/4. Oct. 30, 31;^»^«raer/o ir. i?., July27, 1644. E. 3 
[18], p. 14. 

Bridge in the Assembly treated it as a reductio ad absurdum of presby- 
terial excommunication that if, as the Presbyterians argued, the con- 
gregation for this act of authority were represented in the presbytery, 
all power must be in the people originally, and derived by them to the 
presbytery. The argument of course is weak, but the attitude is sig- 
nificant. Lightfoot, p. 160, Feb. 16, 1643/4. 

1^ The third of the three points on which the Independents in the 
Assembly dissented was, "that a single congregation has not all and sole 
power of ordination." BaiUie, II, 247. Goodwin argued that a min- 
ister might not ordain in another congregation, for ordination was a 
jurisdictional power. Lightfoot, p. 125. Independents in argument 
habitually linked the powers of ordination and excommunication as 
being of the same nature and belonging to the same body. Ibid., p. 
129; Wintkrop's Journal (1908 ed.), I, 52, 110. 



60 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

Erastlan is a word usually balanced with Presby- 
terian and Independent in the ecclesiastical con- 
troversies of the Great Civil War; but it is not 
easy to frame an exact definition for it. The term 
was one of reproach, and applied to a set of men 
temporarily united to carry a point of policy rather 
than to a party with a definitely drawn platform 
to exemplify. At best Erastianism stands, not for 
a platform of ecclesiastical polity, but for a deter- 
mination that Parliament should set up a church 
government without being harassed by claims that 
this or that must of divine right be included. 

An analysis of the word will help a little. Thomas 
Erastus w^as a contemporary of Calvin who had 
questioned the right of church officers to excom- 
municate. As excommunication was the coercive 
weapon of the church, acceptance of Erastus's doc- 
trine implied the further admission that the civil 
state alone had coercive authority in religious 
affairs. In the Westminster Assembly a few 
Hebraists like Selden, Lightfoot, and Coleman de- 
fended this doctrine with a theory of the relation 
of church and state in the Hebrew nation ; namely, 
that the two resided in the same body, and were 
indistinguishable. Applied to English conditions, 
this would mean complete control of the church 
by the state. ^* 

^* In the above definition of Erastianism I have followed Canon Hen- 
son in his English Religion in the Seventeenth Century, pp. 125 ff. In the 
Assembly Lightfoot and Coleman argued that the Jewish elders were as 
much civdl as ecclesiastical officers. Lightfoot, pp. 76, 77, Dec. 8, 11, 
1643. Selden suggested that excommunication was a civil process. 
Ibid., p. 106, Jan. 8, 1643/4. 



ECCLESIASTICAL SUPREMACY OF PARLIAMENT 61 

Probably only a few scholars could follow Sei- 
dell's reasoning; but in so far as his conclusion 
implied the supremacy of civil power over the 
church it was welcomed by men having no desire 
to submit their lives to the control and censure of 
the clerical elderships that the Assembly sought to 
establish. Many of the members of the Long 
Parliament had read law in the Inns of Court while 
men still remembered Coke's championship of the 
supremacy of the common law against the claim 
of the canon law to be its co-ordinate. The same 
m.otives that led such men in 1640 into a war on 
the courts dispensing the canon law, led them in 
1645 to oppose the Presbyterian attempt to impose 
on England a religious code claiming a higher 
authority than the assent of Parliament.^'' Pres- 
byterian Robert Baillie, a Scotch commissioner to 
the Assembly, grouped Hebraist and common law- 
yer under the elastic term Erastian. 

After gauging the underlying principles of the 
three groups, it will be seen that while the theories 
of both the Presbyterians and the Independents 
conflicted with Erastianism, the theory of the Inde- 
pendents was diametrically opposed to it. Eras- 
tianism demanded freedom for Parliament to legis- 
late as it saw fit in ecclesiastical matters; and the 
Independents would be more unflinching than the 
Presbyterians in declaring such legislation worth- 
less where it ran counter to divine law, because the 
Independents were more uncompromising in their 

^* W. A. Shaw, A History of the English Church during the Civil Wars, 
I, 237. 



62 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

insistence on the divine right of their system, and 
the nullity of all ecclesiastical impositions not 
directly warranted by Christ's word. 

At times, indeed, the Presbyterians endeavored 
to support certain features of their system, such as 
the subordination of assemblies, by arguments 
based on the law of nature and the analogy of civil 
government. Their Scripture proofs of such points 
were framed cautiously. "It is lawful and agree- 
able to the word of God." "It is agreeable to the 
light of nature." Presbyterians seemed at times 
to argue that the Presbyterian system was a system 
deducible from Scripture; not the only system so 
to be deduced. The Independents on the other 
hand clung stubbornly to the last proposition, say- 
ing that Christ had not been so remiss as not to 
leave his church a complete and perfect law. The 
Independents were, therefore, the logical defenders 
of fundamental law in the ecclesiastical world 
against the Erastian doctrine of parliamentary- 
legislative supremacy. 

The Presbyterian hierarchy of assemblies of 
clergymen was, however, the bugbear of both 
Independents and Erastians, though for different 
reasons. Erastians feared it because it erected in 
the state a spiritual government as elaborately 
organized as the civil, with offices that might main- 
tain a political party, and with authority to inflict 
spiritual censures that were also social— such as 
suspension from the sacrament. Erastian writers 
disagreed as to whether this system would prove 
a spiritual tyranny over the nobles and gentry, or 



ECCLESIASTICAL SUPREMACY OF PARLIAMENT 63 

a spiritual anarchy.^^ The Independents, on the 
contrary, opposed Presbyterlanism because it im- 
posed more on the conscience than Christ had set 
there. Again they returned to the idea of a com- 
plete and perfect ecclesiastical constitution or 
supreme law bequeathed by Christ to his church. 

Naturally, therefore, the Independents at first 
sought Erastian support by depicting in vivid 
colors the danger to civil authority to be expected 
from the hierarchy of semi-clerical assemblies. 
Men like Nye argued that the Presbyterian system 
erected a state within a state ; a state that claimed 
its order to be of divine right, and therefore inde- 
pendent of the civil magistrate, save when the 
highest ecclesiastical assembly bade him draw the 
civil sword to cut off heretics, or to punish the con- 
tumacious.^^ Independency, they said, had no 

^" The Trojan Horse Of The Presbyteriall Government Unbowelled, 
Sept. 1, 1646, E. 353 (1), p. 14; Marchamont Nedham, The Case of 
the Kingdom Stated, June 12, 1647, E. 392 (13), p. 3; The Cry Of A Stone, 
p. 16. 

^' Nye stated the case for the Independents of the .Assembly, February 
21,1643/4. Lightfoot, p. 168. "If a power over a power, then there 
is one over that and another over that; till you come to subdue all the 
people unto an ecclesiastical government commensurate to the ci\'il. 

"3. The ordering of the church by Christ is such as may be without 
jealousy and suspicion: now power over power in the church extends 
itself equal with the civil; for it is inconvenient to nourish such a vast 
body in a commonwealth. Now this is, 1. As great as the civil. 2. It 
is spiritual. 3. It is so immediately upon the conscience. 

"If it cannot stand well for a great commonwealth to have as great 
a body grow within it, then is it not to be endured; but, ergo. 

"1. Look abroad, and nothing troubles men more than to think 
whether the presbytery shall be set up 'jure divino'. 2. That if it 
be, it will grow as big as the civil. 

2. Where two vast bodies are of equal amplitude, if they disagree 
it is nought; if they agree, it will be worse, one will closely be work- 
ing against another." See also Lightfoot, p. 130. 



64 TEE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

such elaborate organization to rival the civil power. 
It did not call in the civil magistrate to enforce the 
decrees of the church. Since the magistrate had 
the power of the "first table," it was his duty to 
put down heresy on his own initiative; and he 
might seek instruction from the churches as to 
what was or was not heresy. But the declaration 
of non-communion launched by a church against 
a contumacious member, or against a contumacious 
church by other churches was the supreme disci- 
pline that the congregational system knew; there- 
fore it needed no assistance from civil authorities. 
This Independent tenet necessarily led to a com- 
plete denial of the magistrate's power to punish 
religious offenses. In Massachusetts Bay magis- 
trates could exercise control over the churches 
because every magistrate was necessarily a church 
member. But how woujd Independent churches 
fare when civil magistrates, without seeking their 
advice, imposed upon them innovations on Christ's 
supreme laws? Could a magistrate be trusted 
with a power that would permit him to do so? 
On this dilemma the Presbyterians thrust their 
opponents. If the Independents claimed that their 
system was jure divino, how could they leave it at 
the mercy of a civil magistrate unchecked by the 
presence of a national church ?i^ Logically there 
was but one escape for the Independents. 

^^ Some Observations and Annotations Upon the Apologeticall Narra- 
tion, Feb. 29, 1643/4, E. 34 (23), p. 47; An Ansiver to a Libell Intituled, 
A Coole Conference, Apr. 16, 1644, E. 43 (4), passim. Massachusetts, 
as illustrating Independency triumphant, was repeatedly cast into the 



ECCLESIASTICAL SUPREMACY OF PARLIAMENT 65 

However, Independents did not frankly accept 
the dilemma till 1644. Then Roger Williams, a 
certain unknown supposed to be Henry Robinson, 
and John Goodwin, ^^ a London minister of sus- 
pected orthodoxy, stated almost at the same time 
the doctrine of liberty of conscience. As Good- 
win's statement attracted more attention in Eng- 
land than the others, and was a link in a contem- 
porary English controversy, we may examine it 
briefly. Goodwin flatly denied that the Independ- 
ents could assign the civil magistrates any direc- 

teeth of Independency militant in England. As typical, see W. R. 
(William Rathband) A Briefe Narration of Some Church Courses Held 
in Opinion and Practice in the Churches lately erected in New England, 
Mar. 9, 1643/4, E. 36 (11), pp. 21, 34, 35, 43. Its custom of requiring 
the assent of magistrates and of the elders of other churches to the 
erection of new churches was approved as being virtual presbytery; 
while its heresies and schisms were adduced as proof that that Presby- 
terianism needed further development. A doleful letter from a Mr. 
Thomas Parker in New England afforded excellent material. The True 
Copy of a Letter; Written by Mr. Thomas Parker .... touching 
the Government practised in the Churches of New-England, Dec. 17, 1643, 
E. i2> (22). It came out in print on February 19. 

^' The Bloody Tenent of Persecution for cause of Conscience discussed, 
July 15, 1644, E. 1 (2); Liberty of Conscience; Or, The Sole meanes to 
obtaine Peace and Truth. It came out March 24, 1643/4, E. 39 (1). 
For the question of authorship see English Historical Review, I, 144; 
IX, 715; M. S. To A. S. With a Plea for Liber tie of Conscience 
in a Church way. May 3, 1644, E. 45 (3), pp. 32, 34, 40, 41, 43, 53, 
54, 57. The authorship of this is sometimes denied to Goodwin, but 
the internal evidence argues that he wrote it; further, against his own 
denial of authorship {Innocencies Triumph, p. 4.), we have the ascription 
of it to him by Prynne, A Fresh Discovery Of some Prodigious New 
W andring-Blasing-Stars, Dec. 16, 1645, p. 4, by Thomas Edwards {Gan- 
graena II, 31), and by BailHe. Goodwin's denial, moreover, in view 
of the literary practice of the day, is not to be taken too seriously. 



66 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

tive power over the church. Such powers Christ 
alone was fit to enjoy; and the magistrate who 
sought to force the consciences of men by tem- 
poral might usurped Christ's prerogative. The 
quelling of heresy and schism was no excuse; for 
to crush them God had appointed his Word and 
ministry, and not the hand of man. A magistrate 
who drew the temporal sword to cut off those whom 
he thought spiritual offenders might be ill-fated 
enough to learn too late that he had warred against 
God. Goodwin trenchantly criticised the Presby- 
terian delegation of power to the magistrate, term- 
ing it merely a power to force the kingdom to obey 
presbyters in all things. In a later pamphlet he 
suggested that the unregenerate freemen who had 
elected the members of the House of Commons 
could give them no authority over the church, 
made up as it was of saints. Thereby he came 
nearer yet to a doctrine of complete separation of 
church and state.-" 

To this end had attacks on the Presbyterian 
state church led the Independents. Attacking, 
with Erastian arguments, the expediency of Presby- 
terianism, they had come to a position still more 
dangerous from the Erastian viewpoint; for divine 
right in a system of ecclesiastical anarchy was 
even worse than divine right in a system of spiritual 
tyranny. The Independents after advocating such 
an anarchy jure divino had to defend the divine 
right principle against Erastian attacks. 

^0 Tkeomachia, Oct. 7, 1644, E. 12 (1), p. 49. 



ECCLESIASTICAL SUPREMACY OF PARLIAMENT 67 

Since 1641, Erastlan theories of parliamentary 
legislative supremacy over the church had been 
developing rapidly. The first months of the Long 
Parliament's work had seen attacks by its parti- 
sans both on the powers assumed by the episcopal 
hierarchy, and on the claims of the bishops that their 
powers were determined by divine right. Lord 
Brooke and John Milton had argued that episco- 
pacy was an institution, not of divine right, but of 
human origin merely, and of very questionable ex- 
pediency. They had condemned the episcopal 
assumption of divine right as a trespass on the 
regal power of the king. The redoubtable Smec- 
tymnuus had told the culprit bishops that by claim- 
ing episcopacy to be a divine institution, and not 
merely one ordained by the laws of the land, they 
destroyed all legal foundation for the office. Milton 
had believed that if the bishops' claims were al- 
lowed, all manner of encroachments on the rightful 
powers of king and Parliament would follow. The 
king would be subject to excommunication; Moses's 
staff must bow before Aaron's rod.^^ Apart from 
these dire imaginary consequences of admitting a 
divine right in episcopacy, the Parliament, it will 
be remembered, had considered that it had at hand 

21 Brooke, A Discourse Opening The Nature of That Episcopacie, 
Which is Exercised in England; John Milton, Of Reformation in England, 
The Second Book, Prose Works (1834 ed.), pp. 16, 18; AnA7is',ver to a Booke 
Entitided An Humble Remonstrance . ... by Smectymnuus (Ste- 
phen IMarshall, Ed. Calamy, Thos. Young, Mathew Newcomen, William 
Spurstow), Feb. 1640/1, E. 161 (4), p. 66. See also Certaine considera- 
tions, Jan. 1641/2, E. 131 (17); A Pack Of Puritans, June, 1641, E. 208 
(1). p. 46. 



68 TEE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

enough specific instances of the evil effect of eccle- 
siastical encroachments on the civil power — the 
canons, the "Et Cetera Oath," the abuses of the 
ecclesiastical courts. Henry Parker, in a pamphlet 
of 1 64 1, had allowed but a narrow extent of legis- 
lative power to the church — a power of framing 
canons and ecclesiastical regulations that would 
take the force of law only from the assent of king 
and Parliament.22 

Such a doctrine indicated the course that the 
reaction against the Laudian system was taking. 
Men saw the danger of allowing ecclesiastics to 
force on the kingdom a church government, doc- 
trine, and ceremony to which all must conform; 
but they did not propose to avoid the danger by 
separating church and state; rather they assigned 
to the civil authority the power they refused to the 
ecclesiastical. If the church was to be reformed, 
it was the duty of the civil power to reform it 
according to the Word of God; the civil rulers 
might, perhaps must, obtain the pronouncement of 
divines as to what the law of God was; but they 
themselves were judges of the sufficiency of the 
clergy's proofs for the lawfulness of their recom- 
mendations, and they themselves must give those 
recommendations the force of law. The whole 
course of the transactions between the Parliament 
and the Westminster Assembly accorded with this 
theory. The civil authority had the right to frame 
legislation for the church, according to what it 

« The True Grounds of EcdesiastioaU Regiment, pp. 81, 91-94. 



ECCLESIASTICAL SUPREMACY OF PARLIAMENT 69 

believed was the command of the Scriptures Inter- 
preted In the light of reason. ^^ 

It was ominous that this principle was challenged 
as early as 1641. The House of Commons had on 
May 3 commanded the taking of a protestation to 
defend the "true reformed Protestant religion ex- 
pressed in the doctrine of the church of England" 
against all popish innovations. Henry Burton, in 
The Protestation Protested, put a high interpreta- 
tion on this oath and warned those who took it 
that they incurred a heavy obligation; for, while 
so many things of a popish flavor remained In the 
liturgy, discipline, government, and ceremonies of 
the Church of England, a man taking the Protesta- 

^'There was the possibility of bishops having a place in the House 
of Lords to resolve questions of religion. Of course the whole trend of 
Puritan thought at the time was in the direction of a church govern- 
ment founded on the Word of God, and no longer bound by the assumed 
power of the Church to decide on matter of indifference. Brooke thinks 
he has proved on philosophical grounds in his Discourse that nothing 
can be regarded as indifferent. Milton in his writings calls for a 
reformation of the Church according to Christ's commandments. 
The Reason of Church Government, Works, pp. 30, 46. 

There is a pamphlet of Apr., 1642, E. 142 (19), A Discreel And Judi- 
cious Discourse Betweene Wisedome And Pieiie, Two worthy Members. 
Wherein is Declared the Power and lurisdiction of Parliaments in their 
proceedings, and in the alteration of Church Government. In it the ques- 
tion is asked: "But may a State Politique and Civill change the govern- 
ment of the Church, and establish a new forme of governement in the 
same, without advice of a Councell or Synod of Divines, that are grave 
and learned, elected and chosen out of every County of the Kmgdorae, 
and their consents to the change of government in the church?" The 
answer is, that while it cannot, it may choose the divines; and that no 
decision of such a synod is binding without assent of king and Parliament. 

See also Thomas Fuller, A Sermon of Reformation, July 27, 1643, E. 
36 (8). 



70 TEE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

tion might easily find himself conforming to that 
which he had sworn to destroy. Burton's defini- 
tion of popery was a broad one — anything imposed 
on men's consciences in the way of rites, ceremonies, 
or government that was not directly warranted by 
God's Word. He anticipated a possible objection, 
that the things in the Church of England to which 
he took exception were established by acts of Parlia- 
ment, with a startling doctrine: an act of Parlia- 
ment directly contrary to God's Word was ipso 
facto null, void, and of no effect.^^ 

Of course such teaching was sure to call forth 
protests. On July lo the House of Commons com- 
mitted the printer of the pamphlet, and a year 
later one of the king's declarations cited the pam- 
phlet as an example of the seditious writings that 
Parliament permitted to circulate." John Geree 
replied to Burton in Vindiciae VoH, admitting 
guardedly the validity of Burton's position, but 
insisting that even if a law were contrary to the 

24 " YoT Popery (wee know) is Anti-christianisme. And Anti-christian- 
isme is an opposition to Christ, so as this imposition upon the Conscience 
is an opposing and overthrowing of Christs Kingly Office, who is tlie 
sole King and Lord over the Soule and Conscience; an office incommu- 
nicable to any Creature, or Power in Heaven or Earth. Whereupon 
John saith, Who is a Lyar, but he that denyeth that lesus is the Christ, 
He is Antechrist. Now to deny lesus to be the sole annointed King of 
his Church, is to deny him to be the Christ. And he that sets up man 
as Lord over the Conscience in prescribing and imposing what service 
of God hee pleaseth of humane invention, denyeth lesus to bee the 
Christ, to wit, to be the sole King of his Church, who is the Sole Law- 
giver to the Common-wealth of Israel, in his spiritual! Kingdome." P. 
6, E. 158 (14). 

^ Husband, p. 126. The king's answer to the p)etition presented to 
him March 26. Commons Journal, II, 205, 269. 



ECCLESIASTICAL SUPREMACY OP PARUAMENT 71 

law of God it was not, politically speaking, void. 
Rather it was the duty of all to refuse to con- 
form to it and to submit passively to whatever 
penalties followed. Both Geree and Bishop Hall 
declared in their answers that the civ41 authority 
must be the judge as to whether a thing were 
contrary to God's Word.^^ 

A further answer to Burton was necessary from 
the point of view of men who hoped for the estab- 
lishment of the Scotch Presbyterian church gov- 
ernment. They could not reduce their whole eccle- 
siastical system to a single proposition based on 
the words of Christ, as the Independents based 
their proposition of government by the congrega- 
tion on "Tell it unto the Church." The assertion 
that the imposition of any ecclesiastical form not 
warranted by Christ's words was null and void 
endangered their whole position. Accordingly, 
Thomas Edwards, a minister who later developed 
an unusual gift for the collection and arrangement 
of scandalous gossip, took up the cudgels against 
Burton. In arguing for the existence of a power 
in a synod to establish "rules for convenience," 
in addition to the outline of church government 
laid down in the gospels, Edwards almost adopted 
the bishops' old claim of authority to prescribe 
rules in "things of indifference."-^ 

» E. 170 (8 & 9). The title of Hall's book is: A Survay Of Thai Foolish, 
Seditious, Scandalous, Prophane Libdl, The Protestation Protested, 1641, 
E. 164 (8), p. 9. 

^' Reasons against the Iniepeniant Government of Particular Congre- 
gations: As also against the Toleration of such Churches, E. 167 (16), pp. 
12, 18. It came out in August of 1641. 



72 TEE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

The issue between Erastian and Independent 
was joined again in 1644. William Prynne had 
sniffed the pamphlet battle between Presbyterian 
and Independent from afar; and he was soon in 
the thick of it. His first pamphlet was written 
in a lofty vein. He had no leisure to debate the 
unhappy differences on church government, but at 
the entreaty of some reverend friends, he had pro- 
posed Twelve Considerable Serious Questions which 
apparently he thought would convict the Independ- 
ents of error and restore peace. Prynne never 
wrote a book that could not to advantage be con- 
densed, and his comparatively short questions can 
be reduced to this proposition: Every nation must 
have the right to settle a form of church govern- 
ment in accord with its institutions, so long as the 
form is not repugnant to God's Word — for a com- 
plete church government is not to be deduced from 
Scripture. Therefore, if Parliament and the na- 
tional synod set up such a government, all are 
bound to obey it. Defending the Presbyterian 
model by departing from its pretences to divine 
right cannot have been very pleasing to Presby- 
terians of the type of Adam Stewart and the 
Scotch commissioners; but for the moment they 
could scarcely disavow Prynne. ^^ The Independ- 

^^ Ptyime's Questions appeared September 16, 1644. E. 257 (1). 
Thomas Edwards took him gently to task for his Erastian tendencies 
in Gangraena, part I, p. 146. But by the time Gangraena came out 
(Feb. 26, 1645/6), Prynne's Erastian position on suspension from the 
sacrament — Foiire serious Questions, Aug. 23, 1645, E. 261 (8) — had 
called forth Presbyterian protests. 

"The truth is," wrote Goodwin, "that Mr. Prynnes opinion concern- 



ECCLESIASTICAL SUPREMACY OF PARLIAMENT 73 

ents, on the contrary, engaged warmly, and Prynne 
was soon in his element. 

In a second pamphlet published ten days after 
his first, 29 Prynne developed the reasons why Inde- 
pendent practice was incompatible with his general 
proposition. Independency, he argued, really in- 
volved setting the church beyond the control of 
the state. In his opinion the church, outside of 
the things positively ordained in the Word, was so 
much a state affair that there was no difference 
between a freedom to gather Independent churches, 
and a freedom to set up republics or independent 
political states throughout the nation. In view of 
the control that Parliament and king had exer- 
cised over religion, Independency seemed to Prynne 
a legalization of anarchy. 

Passing over Prynne 's minor proposition to deny 
his major, John Goodwin, in a brief answer to the 
Twelve Questions,^" took the ground that Inde- 
pendency was of divine right. It was, therefore, he 
urged, fitting that the state's law be subject to 
Christ's rather than Christ's to the state's. Would 

ing an Ecclesiasticall spirituall Jurisdiction in the Civill Magistrate, which 
yet is his grand notion in all that he hath written upon the subject of 
Presbyterie, overthrows the main grounds and principall foundations 
upon which the Doctrine of Presbyterie is built by all her ablest and 
most skilfull workmen." Calumny Arraign'd And Cast, Jan. 31, 1644/5, 
E. 26 (18), p. 44. 

^^Independency Examined, Vnmasked, Refuted, E. 257 (3). 

^^ Certain briefe Observations and Anliquaeries: On Master Prins 
Twelve Questions About Church Government, Oct. 4, 1644, E. 10 {2>i), 
p. 3. The Thomason catalogue assigns this to John Goodwin who 
answered an attack on it under his own name. The pamphlet is some- 
times assigned to Henry Robinson. 



74 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

Prynne really submit to any form of church govern- 
ment Parliament should set up — even episcopacy? 
Prynne replied^^ that if Parliament should set up 
a government contrary to God's Word, men should 
passively submit or suffer. For his own part, he 
had attacked episcopacy in the days before 1640, 
because bishops had claimed to be by divine right 
and had "innovated" against acts of Parliament. 
While Parliament might have nothing to do with 
matters of doctrine, it assuredly had everything to 
do with church government. Prynne refused to be 
driven from his ground by the application of a 
reductio ad absurdum to his major premise. 

Prynne based on the law of nature a further 
argument for submission to a church government 
ordained by Parliament. The law of nature, he 
said, taught men submission to a central govern- 
ment in civil affairs ; the same law might by analogy 
be presumed to dictate submission to a central 
church government. Both Goodwin and Robinson 
who here entered the lists answered that, on the 
contrary, to force a man's conscience was against 
nature. Prynne's analogy, they said, did not hold 
for tvvo reasons. First, Christ was sole lawgiver 
for his church. Second, such actions as a man 
might be justly commanded by a civil magistrate 
to perform were performable solely by the outer 
man. But an act of worship or religious observance 
must have the assent of the conscience before the 
body could perform it; and no civil government 

31 A Fvll Reply To certaine brief e Observations .... By William 
Prynne, Oct. 19, 1644, E. 257 (7), p. 7. 



ECCLESIASTICAL SUPREMACY OF PARLIAMENT 75 

could lawfully enact that a man's conscience must 
assent to this or that. 

Robinson continued Goodwin's attempts to dem- 
onstrate the absurdity of Prynne's general propo- 
sition. His arguments recall Burton's position of 
1 64 1. If parliaments and synods might justly be 
disobeyed when they enjoined popish observances, 
and the people were judge as to when they did so, 
why might not the Independents refuse obedience 
to things they considered popish? Was it not 
sinful for the people to submit their consciences to 
be burdened by a majority vote? Was it not ridic- 
ulous for men to submit in advance to any religion 
a parliament and synod might impose on them, 
without waiting to be convinced of its lawfulness? 
If Parliament by a majority vote had power to 
establish religion, was not the same power inherent 
in those who chose Parliament? Would it not be 
absurd to allow the unregenerate such power? 
Was it not much simpler to deny the power over 
religion to Parliament at the outset, than to palter 
with these cases of conscience ?^2 

'2 Ceriaine briefe Observations, p. 7. An Answer to Mr. William 
Prymis Twelve Questions, Nov. 1, 1644, E. 15 (5), p. 9. "The selfe same 
Law of Nature, God, and rectified reason which instructed and war- 
ranted all Nations to subject themselves unto some publique forme of 
Civill government, obliging all persons and societies of men alike, which 
they conceived most advantagious, doth not warrant us to doe the like 
in Church affaires; because whatsoever civill action the Civill Magistrate 
requires, may be performed by the outward man, or else be expiated by 
penalty without taint of conscience: But the Church government as it 
aimes at, and regards the Spirituall service and performance, Joh. 4.24, 
so the punishments must have a Spirituall effect, Mat. 18.18, and cannot 
be undergone, or worke upon a mans spirit unlesse he will himself, 
neither may he be willing thereunto, unlesse he apprehend them to be 
according to Chris ts Goverment and Institution." 



Rv>lMn$<Mv, it \Wll Ix^ #!cet\, h;\d horx^ rxH>vx!\<\l the 
tT\>ubU^:?v>mo quosxion as t\> t!\o j^v^x^ of 1\\tH;\- 
moniV ixnvx^r. And the ri^ht by whu^lx rArUatwont 
mi^hx dAim it. It rArliAtnowt Htx^rAlly ivpn^sontwl 
tht' pifople that ohvvse the Moii^^ of Con\tnons, 
l>x»Twn''s Ar>i\in\ont \\\»s irrosijitiMo. It ivuUi hAw 
IxtMi mot only by rc\x^rt\n^ tx> tlxo oArUor th^vry 
th«t the thixx^ ostatx^:? of clergy, lx\i\M\*, and com- 
nH>n$ ^t supren\e in rArliAtnotxt. onjo>niv»i cx^rtAin 
powx^r? by custom And pn\\\iont. Sirx^v the cleri- 
cal elontent hAd Ixx^n eN.vx^lU\i fi\>n\ PArliAtnent, it 
xwis iK» K^ngVT possible tv re^Atvl the t^t:;\tvs of the 
reahn as t\^\irAti\Tly repTx^stM\Tx\i there. 

McAiixvhile l\\-nr.e ;md ^^xviwin cAnie tx> the 
ptMnt \\-hef^ the adwx^Atx^ of ix^rliamentan* abso- 
hitisin anvl the adwxwtx* of di\nne ri^ht wyiv at 
an f<»i»^v<,<sr, l>\nine ar^iuxl thAt it \\\is none of 
Goodwnn's Kisiness ;is a di\Hne tx> prcscrilx^ liniits; 
t\> the po>BkXTs of PiirliAment; tx> speak mildly, it 
\x-As pTx^iunptkm, Gvxxi\\"in saivAstically retx>rtxxl 
>fcHth the siig^x^tion thAt rv>n\ne deign tx> niArk off 
th<? don\Ains he >\"as \cilling tx> concede tx> Jesus 
Christ AS sole ruler: Goodwin professed himself 
TX>A\iy to AKindon all the rest tv> Pariiament,** 

The question at issue in icvj^ berwxx'n IVi-nne, 
^.'ivxxtvx-ii^, iUivi Robinson w'as theoretical; but the 
stru^^e then iiiipendiiig Ix^tvswn Parliament and 
Ass^^mbly trAiislaTOvi the Erastian and di\-ine rigrht 
theories iniv> praciic^U ix>Htics. The l\x'^b\-tx''rians 
KjkI ovwcome the Independents in the Assembly 

Jam. 1, 1M4 ?^ £. :!:5N> (1\ p. !<>>; 7««w«K3r mti IHok THmmtinmi 



EAXLESlASriCAL WFltJEMACY <JP PAFUAULSSl 77 

by force (A numbers; t3x<>y htad dravk'n up f<>r pre- 
itfmv<i^i<m. to FatUsfm^ot a dmrch yt^^axy ds^tmc- 
tiv^y Pr^iibyteriaii. The doctnne that tlib polity 
wa*. of <Uvtf»e fi;^ wa» taddy acoepted ts^r t!>e 
Presbytemn tna|ortty« and qiuedy opposed by tine 
fe«r E^aisdan Svhae*. Not tin tine fumnKr of 1645 
did di« Latter ^dioir tfadr hand. July ^o« TlKMnas 
G>l«3xa» of tb* Acfembly preached the monthly 
fast-day mrmon before the Housir of Commons 
and statad the Exastma position. He tn^gad the 
HfAim to t^^tablifh as litde chtnxdi govemnj«ent/«re 
(fic^iM» as possible. He waroad Htohit careful br/w 
it alknred government to be based as jure dtvmo 
on the authority of insufficient or uncertain texts. 
He bade it lay no more hur^sa on ibe flhoulders 
of ministers than Cbnsthad hud on them* and be 
hdd up as a horrible example the ttfurped powers 
of d:ie Pope! Coleman profie^ed he could W3€ see 
bo%' two coordinate governments exempt Irom su- 
periority or inienonty could be in one state; he 
oould find wrtMog oi it in Scripture! He laid 
doim as Ihe proper rule of division: ^'Give us doc- 
trine, take you the government.''** Such a chal- 
lenge from ihe Er^itians* delivered in the fiace of 
the Howse of Commons and of resSag hoodoo^ the 
Predt»yterians could not decline. George Gilkspie, 
one of ihe Scotch oommis»Dners, undertook the 
task of refut]]^ Coleman's argumcst in a sermon de- 
livered under similar circumstances a mondi later. 

cfever «2jr m U 46aeebgA tt iSm. ^^antA^ (d hijf p«adBaa^. OSeatam. 



78 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

At the same time that the existence of a divi- 
sion in the Assembly other than that of Presby- 
terian and Independent was thus revealed, the 
Presbyterian majority was drifting into open hos- 
tilities with the House of Commons. The actual 
collision was caused by the Assembly's insistence 
on the divine authority for the powers it assigned 
to the presbytery. Without a coercive power in 
the eldership capable of searching and controlling 
the private lives of men, the Presbyterian discipline 
was worth very little. That power was supplied in 
the authority of the elders to suspend the ignorant 
and the scandalous from the Lord's Supper. The 
House of Commons was disposed to limit this 
power in the elderships, either by limiting them 
to a specific list of offenses, or else by allowing 
appeals from the discretionary power of the elders 
to parliamentary committees or to local boards of 
lay commissioners. So limited, according to Baillie, 
the power of the presbytery was merely nominal.^^ 
The decisive battle for the Presbyterian discipline 
had to be decided at this point. 

That battle dragged on for a year, with plat- 
forms and declarations from the Assembly, petitions 
from the Presbyterians in London, and what not. 
Its results need only be summarized. In June of 
1645, the Assembly first advanced its claim of 
divine right for the power to decide on the sins 
that should bar from the sacrament. In the next 
March, it made a similar demand under circum- 

35 BaiUie, II, 307, 320, 325. 



ECCLESIASTICAL SUPREMACY OF PARLIAMENT 79 

stances that aroused the wrath of the House, and 
made the Erastians confident of success in pushing 
matters to extremes. Under Erastian tutelage, 
the Commons responded with a series of questions 
to be answered by the divines; the questions took 
up point after point of the Presbyterian system, 
asking if each were of divine right, and demanding 
Scripture proofs for the answers, with the names 
of the divines accepting or rejecting each answer. 
The Assembly never answered the questions. With 
the authorization by Parliament of a limited Pres- 
byterianism, with a standing committee at West- 
minster to judge finally of " unenumerated of- 
fenses," the fruitful period of the ecclesiastical 
controversy was over. For the time Parliament 
had vindicated its right to supreme legislative 
power over the church. 

The organization of presbyteries and assemblies 
began. The work dragged, the extreme Presby- 
terians trusting that some future alteration in the 
military or political situation would give them all 
they had asked. In few parts of the kingdom was 
more than a perfunctory Presbyterianism set up. 
Years of political and ecclesiastical confusion, 
followed by years of the rule of Saints and Iron- 
sides who knew not Gillespie and Edwards, ended 
at last in the restoration of episcopacy. The 
Presbyterianism that Baillie had hoped to see 
erected, the close, compact series of ecclesiastical 
assemblies with power to inflict spiritual censure 
on all men in the kingdom; the Presbyterianism 
that Erastians had feared because by divine right 



80 TEE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

it made church equal with state, and that Inde- 
pendents had feared because it set more on men's 
consciences than Christ had set there, never took 
root in England. It was contrary to the spirit of 
English institutions, and it could have been set up 
only by a strong and stable government. 

The ecclesiastical controversy of 1641-6 sup- 
plied political ideas to the Levellers. In the first 
place, it left them with a dread of government's 
forcing the nation to conform to a state church, 
whether Presbyterian or Erastian. If we are to 
understand the full significance of the Leveller 
movement, we must imagine the fear of the intoler- 
ant Presbyterian hierarchy as always present in 
the minds of Lilburne and his followers. To under- 
stand the Levellers we must understand also their 
opponent. 

The Independent contributions to the Leveller 
party creed did not stop with the dread of Presby- 
terianism. There were positive as well as negative 
contributions. First, we may consider a possible 
Independent influence on the general attitude of 
the Levellers toward civil and ecclesiastical prog- 
ress. Some Independents at least believed that 
their system, in spite of the elements of fixity that 
it contained, implied continual progress toward 
perfection. In Presbyterian writings, such as the 
letter of the London ministers of January i, 1645/6, 
one can detect the idea that the Presbyterians 
sought a static reformation rather than a dynamic; 
a reformation that with the adoption of the Assem- 
bly's model would attain perfection. A directly 



ECCLESIASTICAL SUPREMACY OF PARLIAMENT 81 

opposite point of view appears in an Independent 
satire written against the letter. It assigns as an 
additional reason why the London ministers op- 
pose Independency that, "the Independents will 
ever bee looking for further light, and go on still in 
Reformation, and would carry the people along 
with them to grow in grace and in the knowledge of 
Jesus Christ .... by which meanes things 
will never be setled perfectly while the Church is 
militant, therefore Independency is a mischiefe to 
the Church. "36 

One corollary of Independent thinking has al- 
ready been considered so fully that in this summary 
it need only be mentioned. Once the Independents 
understood the full implications of their system of 
church government, they could not logically permit 
any close relation between church and state, unless 
the state was itself a theocracy. If, as they be- 
lieved, the proper material for the building of a 
church was saints, they assuredly could not admit 
magistrates chosen by the unregenerate to a direc- 
tive voice in the church. That might be permissible 
in a system like seventeenth-century Presbyterian- 
ism that regarded a church as a national institu- 
tion ; but it was to the last degree inconsistent with 
Independency. As the theocracy of Massachusetts 
Bay disappeared, the doctrine of John Goodwin and 
Roger Williams that the civil magistrate had noth- 

^ A Letter Of The M misters of the City of London, Presented .... 
to the .... Assembly of Divines .... Against Toleration, 
E. 314 (8); Certaine Additional? Reasons To those presented in A Letter 
By the Ministers of London to the Assembly of Divines. Jan. 15, 1645/6 , 
E. 316 (10), p. 6. 



82 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

ing to do with the offenses of the first table gained 
general acceptance in New England. In England 
the doctrine ot liberty of conscience had the support 
after 1645 of most of the radical Independents; 
it was a fundamental article in the creed of the 
Levellers. 

The strength of democratic ideas in seventeenth- 
century Independency has already been estimated. 
Here it is enough to repeat that, while the practice 
of Independency was undemocratic, it could supply 
extremely democratic theories. Quoting from Nye 
and Goodwin's introduction to Cotton's Keyes: 

It [the power of church government] hath now in these our 
dayes been brought so neare unto the people, that they also 
have begunne to plead & sue for a portion & legacy bequeathed 
them in it. The Saints (in these knowing times) finding 
that the Key of knowledge hath so farre opened their hearts, 
that they see with their owne eyes into the substantialls of 
Godlinesse, and that through the instruction and guidance 
of their teachers, they are enabled to understand for them- 
selves such other things as they are to joyn in the practice 
of. They doe therefore further (many of them) begin more 
then to suspect, that some share in the Key of power should 
Ukewise appertain unto them.^^ 

The Levellers also succeeded to the ideas that 
distinguished Independency from Erastianism. The 
Erastians ascribed to Parliament the supreme power 
of legislation for the church on the same principle 
that had already led them to ascribe to it a similar 
power over the nation. The Independents were in 
line with Parliament's earlier constitutional posi- 
tion when they insisted that there were certain 

" P. 2. See Note II on p. 85. 



ECCLESIASTICAL SUPREMACY OF PARLIAMENT 83 

fundamental laws In things ecclesiastical that no 
earthly legislator could abrogate. The Levellers 
simply transferred the principle to politics when 
they pronounced Parliament bound not only by 
the ecclesiastical law of Christ, but also by the 
law of the land, the law of God, and the law of 
reason. 

To be more specific, the Independent system 
gave to politics a clear model of an ecclesiastical 
body limited and regulated by law. Independency 
assigned by divine right certain powers to the 
church officers; it assigned other powers no less by 
divine right to the church members. In either 
case these powers were limited and bounded by the 
supreme law — call it "constitution" if you will — 
that Christ had ordained his church. Each congre- 
gation enjoyed definite powers as being "indowed 
with a Charter to a body politique to Christ." 
The legislation of any inferior lawgiver could not 
interfere with the rights enjoyed by officers and 
people under this supreme law ; for, in comparison 
with it, such legislation would be null and void. 
The first check imposed on the claims of Parliament 
by its own supporters was imposed by the radical 
Independent pamphleteers. Further, there is a 
significant analogy between the Leveller Agreements 
of the People — constitutions intended to be per- 
petual because, as their framers believed, they were 
based on rules of reason self-evident to all rational 
men — and the congregational church system, un- 
changeable because founded in the rules of God's 
Word. 



84 TEE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

Finally, the Independents In prescribing a method 
whereby their fundamental law might be made 
binding on men, had evolved a new doctrine of 
compact. At the same time that they had admitted 
that the law of nature commanded men's subjection 
to civil authority, they had fixed on covenant as the 
sole source of subjection to ecclesiastical authority. 
If the magistrate had no authority over offenses of 
the first table, and if the church had no such au- 
thority outside of its own membership, its disci- 
plinary authority over that membership must be 
traced to the compact and covenant by which each 
member on entering into church fellowship submit- 
ted himself to such deserved ecclesiastical censures 
as by Christ's law his fellow members might deem 
it necessary to inflict on him. Once the Levellers 
transferred this theory to politics, the doctrine of 
the social compact took concrete form. 

NOTES 

I. Alleged Independent Exclusiveness 

The restricted circle of membership peculiar to Independent churches 
sometimes gave a flavor of Phariseeism to their institutions. The 
Presbyterian champions, Bastwick and Edwards, twitted the Inde- 
pendents with the aristocratic exclusiveness of their churches. No 
doubt there was very much ground for such taunts. Lord Saye, who 
was an ardent Independent, was by no means a democrat. A chief 
objection with him to episcopacy seems to have been that it allowed 
men of low social standing to rise to a plane of political equahty with 
the great nobles. A Speech oj Lord, Viscount Saye and Scale, E. 198 (16), 
in Hanbury, II, 132. Lilburne in later days habitually refers to him as 
"that Guilded fox". A more honorable motive for the restriction of 
membership is to be sought in the despair of pious ministers imbued 
with the deepest Calvinism at the stolid self-complacency of the average 
communicant in the EngUsh parish, content with negative goodness, and 



ECCLESIASTICAL SUPREMACY OF PARLIAMENT 85 

sure of a future reward so long as he partook of the sacraments of the 
Church of England. The follomng quotation is from Robert Coachman 
in The Cry Of A Stone, Feb. 1641/2, E. 137 (32). "Whereas contrari- 
wise, when all manner of gracelesse men are fed with the scales and 
pledges of Gods favour, and invested into the full privilege and highest 
prerogative with the most godly in the Church, and that it is daily told 
him, there is the body and blood of Christ given for him, how presump- 
tuous doe they grow? .... Tell them of wicked men and damna- 
tion, they'll send you to Rome, or Turkic, or India, amongst the Heathens 
or Papists, for why? they are Protestants, and have a sound Religion, 
and are borne, baptized, and brought up in a Christian common-wealth 
and Church, and eate the flesh, and drinke the blood of Christ, in whom 
they say, they trust to be saved, though they never imitate his examples, 
but notwithstanding all their presumption, they have not stroke one 
true stroke at sinne . . . ." (P. 15.) Coachman had the fairness 
unusual among Puritans to protest against attributing such conditions 
entirely to the sloth and negligence of the bishops, or to the corrupting 
influence of the ceremonies. 

II. Alleged Democratic Doctrine in Williams and Cotton 

Hermann Weingarten, Die englische Revolutionskirche (p. 290) would 
appear to assign a greater priority among democratic doctrines than they 
deserve to certain statements by John Cotton and Roger Williams on the 
sovereignty of the people in The Bloody Tenent of Persecution ( 1848 ed.) 
p. 212. Cotton had said: "First, the proper means whereby the civil 
power may and should attain its end, are only political. . . . First, 
the erecting and establishing what form of civil government may seem 
in wisdom most meet, according to general rules of the word, and state 
of the people." Williams's comment is that by this the original of civil 
power Ues in the people "whom they must needs mean by the civil power 
distinct from the government set up." Accordingly, Williams concludes, 
the people may set up a government intrusted with what power they will. 
However, there is nothing in the passage to show that he actually means 
more than Parker did by a similar utterance. He uses it as a reductio 
ad absurdum for the power of the civil state over the church. His gloss 
on Cotton is unfair. Cotton was writing a " Model of Church and Civil 
Power" to be sent to the church at Salem. This, and the fact that he 
prefixed to his statement the postulate that every member of the com- 
monwealth was also a member of the church, should make it clear that 
his application was narrowed to the freemen of the Massachusetts Bay 
colony. 



CHAPTER III 

THE FIRST RADICAL CRITICISM OF PARLIAMENT 

T N the summer of 1645, a few of the lesser members 
■*■ of the Independent party began to criticise 
certain actions of the House of Commons as con- 
trary to the fundamental law of the kingdom. One 
particular action in question was the imprisonment 
of Lieutenant Colonel John Lilburne for his refusal 
to answer the questions of a parliamentary commit- 
tee till he was sure his answers might not be made 
the basis of legal proceedings against him. The man 
in question on this occasion, as in many other events 
of his life, registered by his action a concrete pro- 
test against an illegal or inequitable act of the 
government. 

Because Lilburne continually exemplified in his 
actions the political principles of his party, it is 
difficult to disentangle the Leveller movement from 
the personality of the arch Leveller. Our estimate 
of the Leveller principles naturally varies with our 
estimate of the man. What we know of John 
Lilburne's life and character is told us partly by 
his friends, partly by his enemies, but mainly by 
himself. The comparative weight we attach to 
these sources of information will determine whether 
we regard Lilburne as a knave ready to feather his 
own nest in civil disorder, a blustering braggard, 
unable long to agree with any set of men, or a 
crusader for principles to which he clings through 



FIRST RADICAL CRITICISM OF PARLIAMENT 87 

revolutions generally swayed by factional or per- 
sonal considerations. To establish the proper 
weight to be assigned to each of these three views, 
a knowledge of his career before 1645 is necessary. 
John Lilburne was the younger son of a Durham 
family whose lineage traced to the fifteenth, per- 
haps even to the fourteenth century. Lilburne, 
though he might forget his gentle birth in his ordi- 
nary intercourse with men, had it ever ready for 
use as a weapon. Thus, when he was on trial in 
1653, he told Barkstead that it was fitter for him 
to sell thimbles and bodkins than to sit in judgment 
on a person so much his superior.^ Like many 
other younger sons, Lilburne was apprenticed in 
London sometime between his thirteenth and fif- 
teenth year, about 1630. His schooling had pre- 
viously progressed far enough to give him a little 
Latin and Greek, and this education he supple- 
mented in London by reading Fox's Martyrs and 
the Puritan divines. ^ Almost to the end of his 
career his information was confined to a few narrow 
fields. But the quickness with which he assimi- 
lated such learning as he needed from time to time, 
and the critical judgment he brought to bear on it 
should have put to shame many of his contempo- 
raries whose reputation for wisdom depended on 
the amount of their information rather than on 
the originality of their thinking. 

' Calendar of the Clarendon Papers. II, 245. 

^hmocency A:id Truth Justified, Jan. 6, 1645/6, E. 314 (21), p. 8. 
He mentions as authors in whom he had read: Fox, Luther, Calvin, 
Beza, Cartwright, Perkins, Molin, Burton, and Rogers. Legal Futzda- 
mentaU Liberties, June 8, 1649, E. 567 (1), p. 25. The second edition is 
cited here and hereafter. 



88 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

From Lilburne's reading in divinity, as one would 
infer, he adopted Puritan doctrine. After 1637 he 
drifted into Separatism, and into a kind of religious 
mysticism that in his later life contrasted strangely 
with the lucid quality of his political beliefs. Mean- 
while as a youth he associated himself with the little 
group of men who were in bitter opposition to the 
bishops and their works ; thus he became acquainted 
with John Bastwick, then a prisoner in the Tower, 
and with a certain citizen named Thomas Wharton, 
at whose request Bastwick had written his Letany 
against the bishops. According to Bastwick, Lil- 
burne asked for a copy of the Letany in order that 
he might print it and raise by its sale a stock in 
trade for himself; for such books brought a price 
proportionate to the danger of handling them.^ 
Lilburne's after life showed he could consider his 
private interests when they did not conflict with 
what he thought his duty to the public ; and on this 
occasion it is not unlikely that he believed he was 
justified in making his profit on books that would 
further God's work. Whatever his motive, he 
crossed over to the Low Countries to arrange for 
printing Puritan books, first coming to an under- 
standing with Wharton who circulated such pro- 
hibited wares. 

Lilburne, soon after his return, fell into the hands 
of the archbishop's pursuivants. His examination 
before the king's attorney, which took place Jan- 
uary 14, 1637/8, revealed to Lilburne that a friend 

» A Ivst Defence of John Bastwick, Aug. 30, 1645, E. 265 (2), pp. 
10-15. 



FIRST RADICAL CRITICISM OF PARLIAMENT 89 

whom he had trusted had accused him^ of printing 
ten or twelve thousand books in Holland, and of 
receiving money for them from Wharton. 

With his examiner Lilbume took a defiant tone. 
He showed a marked unwillingness to answer ques- 
tions, and denied all knowledge of the charge ; finally 
he protested that it was unwarrantable by the law 
of God and the law of the land to examine him 
against himself on matters other than those he was 
charged with, and not confront him with his accuser. 
Ten or twelve days later Lilburne was brought 
before the Court of Star Chamber, and here 
Lilburne speedily found many things in the court's 
routine to which he could not conscientiously con- 
form. He refused to pay the clerk his fees; he re- 
fused to take the ex officio oath that was used to 
examine men on the charges against them, for "he 
wished to be better advised of the lawfulness of it." 
Wharton's conduct, when he and Lilburne were 
summoned before the court for sentence, showed 
where Lilbume had learned to be scrupulous 
about oaths. He thundered out that the oath 
of churchwardenship, the oath of canonical obe- 
dience, and the oath ex officio were alike against the 
law of the land.^ No court could very well brook 
such contempt of its orders ;much less a seventeenth- 
century court; least of all one of the august compo- 
sition of the Star Chamber. Wharton and Lil- 
burne were fined five hundred pounds each, and 

* Edmund Chillenden. The Christian Mans TriaU, Dec. 1641, E. 181 
(9), pp. 1-4, 12. 

^Christian Mans Triall, passim. 



90 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

Lilburne was sentenced in addition to be whipped 
from the Fleet Prison to Westminster, and to stand 
in the pillory. 

Lilburne always welcomed an opportunity to 
stand forth before the people as the champion or 
the martyr of a cause. On this occasion he met 
his sufferings under the Star Chamber's barbarous 
sentence with his spirit exulting that he was per- 
mitted to suffer In the Lord's cause. It seemed to 
the boy that the various Incidents of his punishment 
— the sympathy of the bystanders, the regret of the 
executioner at doing his duty with the whip — all 
summoned him to testify by his sufferings to the 
"rottenness" of episcopacy. Therefore, as he stood 
In the pillory, his back smarting from five hundred 
lashes, he undertook to prove to the onlookers that 
the bishops were popish In origin and authority. 
Until the Lords of the Star Chamber sent word to 
the warden of the Fleet to gag his prisoner, Lil- 
burne exhorted an audience whose sympathy he had 
apparently won for his cause. ^ 

The Star Chamber savagely testified to Its anger 
at this new defiance of its authority. At a meeting 
the same day it decreed that Lilburne should be 
laid with Irons on hands and feet in the part of 
Fleet Prison where the basest prisoners were kept; 
no one must be allowed to visit him or to supply 
him with money. Accordingly, even his surgeon 
on the morning after the punishment was refused ad- 
mission to him. The boy's friends were compelled 
to send him his food through the poor men of the 

• Howell, Complete Collection oj State Trials, III, 1326-1340. 



FIRST RADICAL CRITICISM OF PARLIAMENT 91 

prison who lived on public charity and, when that 
means was cut off by the authorities, through 
another prisoner in the room above Lilburne's. 
When he was sick to the point of death his serv^ants 
and friends were often not allowed to dress his 
wounds. On one occasion, to save himself, as he 
thought, from being murdered outright, he had to 
hold his room as a fortress by force of arms.^ 

The authorities had no punishment that could 
quell his courage. In May he was again examined 
as to his conduct in the pillory. His examiners 
only drew from him such bold language that they 
begged him to hold his peace and save himself. He 
challenged the bishops to dispute with him before 
the king, engaging himself to show their calling to 
be of the devil — a challenge that loses some of its 
ludicrousness when we consider the situation of the 
challenger. The spirit of his warfare against the 
bishops was dangerously infectious; and even at 
this stage in his career he had begun to show a pow- 
er of moving the masses by speech or writing. When 
the attempt on his life was made, he circulated 
among the apprentices at their Whitsuntide holiday 
in Moorfields an appeal for succor. This, so Lil- 
burne said afterwards, caused a riot against Laud 
among the apprentices that nearly saved the hang- 
man a labor in the end. The crusader still, Lil- 
bume reiterated his enmity to the bishops even 
while he begged the apprentices to petition the lord 
mayor to remove him to a prison where his life 
would be safer. "I would scorne to flie, for I am 

''Ibid., Ill, 1341, 1342, 1351, 1352; Historical Manuscripts Com- 
mission Reports, IV, 33; Innocency And Truth Justified, p. 74. 



92 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

resolved by the might and strength of my God, for 
the honour of my King and Country, and the good 
of future generations, to fight it out so long as I 
have a legge to stand on, and to waige professed 
warre so long as I have drop of blood in my bellie: 
with the domestick and home bred enemies of the 
King and State for I have a Souldiers heart within 
my innocent breast."^ 

November 3, 1640, the day of the meeting of the 
Long Parliament, marked a turn in Lilburne's for- 
tunes. On that day he presented a petition to 
Parliament, and was at once granted his liberty to 
"follow his petition," as the phrase was. May 4, 
1 64 1, the Commons voted that his censure and 
imprisonment were illegal, and that reparation in 
the form of damages was due him; but the Lords 
delayed concurrent action until December i, 1645." 
Meanwhile Lilburne supported the parliamentary 
party in London. He probably advanced his pecu- 
niary fortunes a little, and at some time before 1642 
he married Elizabeth Duell. She identified herself 
with her husband's political ideals, and worked loy- 
ally beside him to realize them. 

At the outbreak of war, Lilburne entered the 
Parliament's army in the spirit of many other ear- 

' Come out of her my people, p. 27. (1640, Guildhall); Innocency And 
Truth Justified, p. 74; The Prisoners Plea for a Habeas Corpus, Apr. 4, 
1648, E. 434 (19). I have assumed that the petition that Lilburne quotes 
in this book in 1648 is the one that was distributed in Moorfields. Lil- 
burne dates that given above May 10, 1639. The contemporary petition 
(Dec, 1640) of Catherine Hadley, who describes herself as Lilburne's 
servant, and complains of being imprisoned on suspicion of having dis- 
tributed the paper, dates it May 28. Historical Mamiscripls Commis- 
sion Reports, IV, Zi. 

« State Trials, III, 1342-1346, 1358. They revoked his fine. 



FIRST RADICAL CRITICISM OF PARLIAMENT 93 

nest men, who outstripped the legal technicalities 
on which Parliament called them to arms, and en- 
listed for the war as for the supreme struggle against 
the powers of evil. In the literature of the Great 
Civil War a book like John Goodwin's Anti-Cava- 
Uerisme^^ represents the spirit of such men. The 
Independent bade his hearers remember that as 
Englishmen they stood in defense of their property 
and political liberty against the godless cavaliers, 
Satan's last hope. "If you shall hold out this one 
impression and onset which they are now making 
upon you, and make good the ground you stand on 
against them ; you shall breake their cords in sunder, 
and cast their bands from you for ever; you shall 
make such an entaylement of this pretious inheri- 
tance we speake of, your libertie, to your children, 
and childrens children, that they shall never be able 
to cut off. If they be but now broken, they are not 
like ever to make themselves whole againe: if you 
will be perswaded to be men of wisedome once, you 
may be men of comfort and peace ever after." Nor 
did Goodwin believe that the godly as martyrs 
were to conquer by patience. Martyrdom, he said, 
he did not think that God would use much longer 
to advance his kingdom. Goodwin's book pre- 
serves to us the early hopes and aspirations of the 
men who later molded the temper of the New 
Model, and later still, some of them, claimed their 
liberties by the Agreement of the People. 

Lilburne, it may be imagined, possessed a double 
portion of the spirit of Goodwin. As a boy, sick 

"Oct. 21, 1642, E. 123 (25), pp. 38-39. 



94 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

and in prison, he had dared to proclaim himself a 
soldier against the Lord's enemies, the bishops, 
when they sat in high places; as a man he would 
not be wanting at Armageddon. Furthermore, the 
same motive that had led him to stand against the 
bishops and the Star-Chamber process in 1637, and 
against the king in 1642, led him in the later years 
of his short life to stand against the arbitrary power 
of Parliament itself. Without understanding what 
that motive was, one cannot do justice to his career. 
Lilbume considered his life dedicated to a crusade 
against wrong, injustice, lawlessness, and tyranny 
wherever found. That fact once understood, his 
seemingly tortuous and capricious political course 
becomes straight and consistent. 

The events of Lilburne's military career can be 
briefly told. He enlisted in Lord Brooke's regiment 
of foot, fought gallantly at Edgehill, and as the sen- 
ior officer present commanded the regiment in its 
desperate defense of Brentford, November 12, 1642. 
That defense held back the king's army till the par- 
liamentary train of artillery at Hammersmith could 
be removed to safety; but Brooke's and Holles's 
regiments, which made the defense unaided, were 
cut to pieces and Lilbume was carried prisoner to 
Oxford. There the Royalists, after trying unsuc- 
cessfully to gain him over, put him on trial for high 
treason, and accorded him the treatment of a pris- 
oner of war only as a result of Parliament's threat 
of retaliation.^^ 

^* A Letter Sent from Captaine Lilbume, To divers of his Friends, Jan. 3, 



FIRST RADICAL CRITICISM OF PARLIAMENT 95 

After his exchange he refused a government place 
in order to continue his crusade for England's 
liberty. He held commissions, first as major of 
Colonel King's regiment, then as lieutenant colonel 
of the Earl of Manchester's dragoons. In Crom- 
well's disputes with Manchester, Lilburne sided 
with Cromwell, becoming one of Cromwell's wit- 
nesses against the earl in 1644. He quarreled with 
both Manchester and Colonel King, and preferred 
charges of treachery, cowardice, and embezzlement 
against King to a Parliament committee. He laid 
down his command early in 1645, refusing. to take 
the Covenant as the New Model Ordinance pre- 
scribed. 

This is the Lilburne of 1645. Already a careful 
observer of his life can distinguish his salient char- 
acteristics. He has a powerful intellect that will 
take nothing on credit, but persists, with a keen- 
ness that compensates for narrow information, in 
analyzing for itself any political situation. A moral 
courage seconds his intellect, impelling him ever to 
occupy the post of danger in the vindication of a 
new idea; at the same time self-esteem makes him 
conscious that the eyes of all men should be on 
him in his post of danger and duty. Withal, he 
has an instinctive insight into the thinking of the 
plain people that puts a force defying analysis into 
his long pamphlets, with their overgrown para- 

1642/3, E. 84 (5); Englands weeping spectacle, June 29, 1648, E. 450 (7), 
p. 5; Chillenden, The Inhumanity of the Kings Prison-Keeper, Aug. 4, 
1643, E. 63 (17), p. 10; Innocency And Truth Justified, p. 65; Legal Funda- 
mentall Liberties, p. 27. 



96 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

graphs and unwieldy sentences; he has an oratori- 
cal skill that by use of capitals or what not can 
make the most rambling paragraph climax with a 
crack like a whip-lash. A power of bitter invective 
couched in language as clean as that of the cleanest 
contemporary pamphleteer and an absolute free- 
dom from a sense of humor complete his equipment 
for appeal to the masses. 

For politics he is hampered by a credulity that 
makes him too trustful of seeming friends, and too 
ready to forgive repeated treacheries, if only they 
be interspersed with professions of penitence. A 
declared enemy he pursues relentlessly. ^^ j^jg high 
devotion to principle pardons no man's deviation 
from it in deference to passing exigencies. These 
traits are accompanied by a more than passive 
willingness to receive what is justly his due. But 
the dominating trait in his character, ignored both 
by contemporary and modern biographers, is the 
spirit of a crusader for the public good; and, as he 
endeavors to convince his critics, the attainment 
of the public good is the motive of his life.^^ 

When John Lilburne took up his abode in London 
at the conclusion of his military career, his temper 
and pursuits drew him into active political life. 

12 For instance, he assisted his old betrayer Chillenden with money 
when both were prisoners at Oxford. He was several times deceived by 
Cromwell's professions of penitence. On the other hand, he pursued 
unsparingly his attacks on Colonel King. 

'' Many of his pamphlets are biographical, written with this end in 
view. The most noteworthy exposition by another is in England's weep- 
ing spectacle, June 29, 1648, E. 450 (7). Interesting also is The Just 
Defence Of John Lilburne, Against Such as charge him with Turbulency 
of Spirit, Aug. 23, 1653, E. 711 (10). 



FIRST RADICAL CRITICISM OF PARLIAMENT 97 

He had business of his own before Pariiament and 
its committees. He had to secure a settlement of 
his accounts which, according to the military sys- 
tem of the age, included disbursements for his 
command. He hoped also to induce Parliament to 
complete the series of acts necessary to give him 
reparation and damages for his Star-Chamber sen- 
tence ; further, he had his charges to press against 
his former commander, Colonel King. Moreover, 
he was already closely identified with the London 
Independent faction, out of which developed within 
a few months of his retirement from the army the 
more radical party that was the parent of the later 
Leveller organization. 

The political distinction between Presbyterians 
and Independents, and the beginnings of an Inde- 
pendent party date from 1641. Soon after the 
Long Parliament had assembled, old school Puri- 
tans or Presbyterians began to be alarmed at the 
growth of Separatism. By August of 1641 Sepa- 
ratist meetings, and preachings by inspired trades- 
men were common enough to call forth satires.'* 
Meanwhile Independents of a more respectable type 
according to the world's estimate were trying, not 
unsuccessfully, to ingratiate themselves with Par- 
liament. The Independent lords joined with thirty 
of the commons to write to New England asking 
that Cotton, Hooker, and Davenport might attend 
the Assembly of Divines. '^ Though the New Eng- 

"Such are in E. 158 (1), E. 160 (23), both by John Taylor; E. 172 
(11), The Brothers of the Separation; E. 180 (25), The Discovery of a 
Swarme of Separatists. 

1* Winthrop's Journal, II, 71. 



98 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

land Independents did not appear, the Assembly 
contained men of their way of thinking. In the 
fall of 1643 the Assembly found in its midst cer- 
tain men of unblemished orthodoxy who protested 
when it endeavored to put a check on the "gather- 
ing of churches," i.e. the forming of new congrega- 
tions after the Independent model with members 
drawn from the old parish churches. Many such 
churches had been formed, notably by the five 
Holland ministers ; they had grown up everywhere 
around prominent Independent preachers. De- 
cember 22, 1643, when the Assembly finally issued 
a recommendation that no more of these churches 
should be gathered, the Independent members 
blocked a further proposal that the churches al- 
ready gathered be disbanded.'^ 

The undoubted respectability of the more aristo- 
cratic Independents protected a host of heretical 
opinions among the baser sort. In May, 1644, 
Baillie mournfully testified that Manchester's army 
was so full of Anabaptists, Antinomians, and Inde- 
pendents that he feared lest they corrupt the 
Scottish army on its arrival in England. ^^ June 7, 

'* Lightfoot, p. 92. Edwards in 1646 enumerated seven Independent 
churches as having existed three years; apparently there were many 
more in 1646. Gangraena, II, 16. Edwards meets the Independent 
attacks on the greed of the Presbyterian clergy by enumerating the rich 
plural lectureships held by Independents. Ibid., I, 71 ff. 

" Baillie, II, 185. When Lilburne joined King's regiment, by his own 
account he had done much to compose dissensions between King and the 
soldiers and townspeople of different religious persuasions — dissensions 
aroused by King's intolerance. The Lust Mans Lustificaiion, June 6, 
1646, E. 340 (12), p .20; Innocency And Truth Justified, p. 42. Bastwick's 
version was that Lilburne by his preaching of separation had caused 



FIRST RADICAL CRITICISM OF PARLIAMENT 99 

he attempted a dispassionate estimate of the rela- 
tive strength of parties. He took comfort from the 
fact that the regular parish ministers of London 
with the exceptions of John Goodwin, Burton, and 
one "scrupling Paedobaptism" were sound Presby- 
terians. But he added the mournful fact that 
many of the lectureships were held by Independent 
ministers. Further, he thought he could see the 
leaven of Independency at work. Most of the 
Independents, he wrote, were lapsing into Anti- 
nomianism, Anabaptism, Socinianism and other 
heresies ;'^^ and "one Mr. Willams" had led off a 
part of the remainder into a new and extreme 
Independency. 

Against heresy the House of Commons waged an 
intermittent warfare. In March it ordered pre- 
pared an ordinance against the dissemination of 
Antinomian and Anabaptist opinions. August 9 it 
voted that "one Williams his Books, intituled etc. 
concerning the Tolerating of all Sorts of Religion" 
were to be publicly burned. It set a committee at 
the task of considering means of checking the ob- 
noxious sects. ^^ November 15 the Commons or- 
dered that no person who was not ordained in some 
reformed church should be allowed to preach — an 
ordinance aimed at the "mechanic" preachers who 
throve in both city and army. 20 

divisions all up and down Lincolnshire. A Ivst Defence oj John Bast- 
wick, p. 32. In either case the commentary on the religious divisions in 
Manchester's army is the same. 

i^BaiUie, II, 191, 192. 

^^ Commons Journal, III, 441, 585. 

»° Ibid., Ill, 697. 



100 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

Meanwhile the ecclesiastical controversy in the 
Assembly had found men to translate it into lan- 
guage understood by the people. "Sir Simon 
Synod," "Sir John Presbyter," the "Ordinance for 
Tithes" — all came in for a hard hammering in a 
series of tracts by "Reverend Young Sir Martin Mar- 
priest son to old Martin the Metropolitan." One of 
them was printed "by Martin Claw-Clergie, Printer 
to the Reverend Assembly of Divines, and are to 
be sould at his Shop in Toleration Street, at the 
Signe of the Subjects Liberty, Right opposite to 
Persecuting Court. "^^ Another tract of the series 
threatened the perquisites of the clergy. Why 
should the clergy, one-thousandth of the popula- 
tion of the kingdom, claim one- tenth of the king- 
dom's produce for their support? The Levite, it 
was true, had received the tenth by authority of 
the Old Testament, but the Levite had been bound 
to share it with the poor. If Paul had worked 
with his hands to sustain himself, why should not 
Presbyterian ministers do the like?^^ a third tract 
was a vigorous popularization of the attack on the 
proposed powers of the Presbyterian hierarchy. 
Was it to be set free to persecute the men who had 
served the Parliament so faithfully ?^^ 

2' The Arraignement of Mr. Persecution, Richard Overton, Apr. 8, 
1645, E. 276 (23). A trial scene in this pamphlet suggests a similar 
scene in John Bunyan's Holy War so forcibly as almost to bring one to 
the conclusion that Bunyan owed his inspiration to the tract. 

" The Ordinance for Tythes Dismounted, Dec. 29, 1645, E. 313 (27). 
As early as June of 1644 refusals to pay tithes were causing the beneficed 
ministers of the Assembly much concern, as Lightfoot's notes show. 
Lightfoot, XIII, 281, 283. 

» Martin's Eccho, June 27, 1645, E. 290 (2). 



FIRST RADICAL CRITICISM OF PARLIAMENT 101 

Lilburne threw himself into the thick of the fray. 
The line of argument that appealed to him as most 
telling was practical — that the Parliament in coun- 
tenancing hostile proceedings against the Inde- 
pendents was harassing Its truest friends. January 
7, 1644/5, he wrote Prynne a letter in a style that 
was lofty when addressed to Prynne and abusive 
when directed at the Assembly. Complaining In 
this letter that the "Black coates" had closed the 
presses to Independent books, he challenged 
Prynne to debate with him the fundamental doc- 
trines of Independency. 2^ For printing this letter, 
and printing an explanation of It which he had 
given before a parliamentary committee, Lilburne 
was twice brought before the committee under 
arrest. All this he attributed to Prynne's malice." 

^* Prynne neglected to answer the letter, saying later that he had been 
too busy to read it till three or four days after he received it. Meanwhile 
Lilburne printed it. Thomason dates it January 15, 1644/5, E. 24 (22). 
Prynne's account is in The Lyar Confounded, Oct. 15, E. 267 (1), pp. 3, 30. 

" Prynne says that the committee dropped the matter in January 
out of compassion for Lilburne who had been lately run through the eye 
by a pike in Moorfields. The Lyar Confounded, p. 3. Lilburne's sight 
was probably seriously affected. A year later Edwards speaks of his 
face as still blemished from the accident {Gangraena, II, 104) ; and in 
1647, Lilburne represented himself as forced to use spectacles, having 
but one good eye to see with. The resolved mans Resolution. 

The committee summoned Lilburne on May 14 or 16. According to 
Prynne it aUowed him to explain his letter of January in writing, but not 
to print what he wrote. According to Lilburne, he was told to print 
nothing till he had turned in his explanation in writing. The Lyar Con- 
founded, p. 5; Innocency And Truth Justified, p. 9. Lilburne's printing 
his explanation at the press suspected of printing the Marpriest tracts 
caused the committee to summon him a third time. Thomason dates 
the printed explanation June 13, E. 288 (12). The Lyar Confounded is 
the authority for the other statements. 



102 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

Presbyterian and Independent were ready to fly 
at each others' throats as the struggle with the 
king neared its crisis. The almost forgotten epi- 
sode of the Windmill Tavern meeting illustrates 
the heights to which their mutual suspicion ran. 
Immediately after the loss of Leicester, two or 
three hundred citizens of London met at the Wind- 
mill Tavern and chose a committee of sixteen mem- 
bers to draw a petition to Parliament. Lilburne, 
though not the chairman of this committee, as 
Prynne stated, was a member of it; but Lilburne 
professed that he did not know at least a third of 
the other members, so far was the meeting from 
being a party affair. The committee, by his ac- 
count, proposed to petition that the members of 
the Assemby be sent home to their respective par- 
ishes, to stir up the people to rise en masse against 
the Royalists. He added that this expedient had 
been suggested by an assembly divine to Major 
Salloway of the committee, and was eliminated 
from the petition at the committee's second meet- 
ing. ^^ William Prynne, however, was convinced 
that Hugh Peters, the bete noir of the Presbyterians, 
had designed the Windmill Tavern meeting to 
secure the dissolution of the Assembly and the 
indefinite postponement of the Presbyterian model 

^* Prynne's account is in A Fresh Discovery Of some Prodigious New 
Wandring-Blasing-Stars, Dec. 16, 1645, E. 267 (3), p. 17. Lilbume's 
is in Innocency And Truth Justified, p. 4. See also Commons Journal 
for June 4, 1645. Edwards's account of the whole affair was that it had 
been proposed to petition not only for the dissolution of the Assembly, 
but also that certain Independent members of the Commons be set up 
as an extraordinary committee. Gangraena, I, 67. 



FIRST RADICAL CRITICISM OF PARLIAMENT 103 

of church government. The "device," according 
to Prynne, was dropped out of the petition by the 
common council of London when the petition was 
submitted to the council for presentation. To 
Prynne and Bastwick, Lilburne appeared to be 
the leader of a coterie of desperate Independents 
who plotted to elect their adherents to Parliament, 
dissolve the Assembly, overthrow the Presbyte- 
rians, and destroy the peerage and all ranks and 
orders in the state. ^^ 

Charges and counter charges of treasonable corre- 
spondence with Oxford marked the height to which 
party jealousy had arisen. Similar charges had 
clustered around the names of individual Parlia- 
ment members since the beginning of the war; 
and now neither Presbyterians nor Independents 

2^ A Ivst Defence of John Bastwick, pp. 29, 30. Lilburne commented 
on the accuracy of Prynne's account by stating that Peters was not 
present at the meeting. Hugh Peters was assiduously engaged in the 
summer of 1645 in securing the election of Independent members of 
Parliament as new writs were issued for one borough after another. The 
statement was made that he had admitted ha\'ing two or three seats 
that he could bestow on whom he would. He was supposed also to be 
canvassing the relative strength of Presbyterians and Independents in 
the army. Plain English: Or, The Sectaries Anatomized, Aug. 17, 1646, 
E. 350 (11), pp. 3, 10. It was supposed for a time that Peters intended to 
bring in Lilburne and Walwyn as burgesses for a Cornwall constituency. 
Gangraena, II, 29. The electors of Southwark also considered choosing 
the two men. Lilburne wrote a letter against Bastwick this same sum- 
mer to the electors of Rye, where Bastwick was seeking election. Inno- 
cency And Truth Justified, p. 8. 

Peters's assiduity was a great vexation to the Presbyterians. Ed- 
wards gravely dismisses him with an account of a story he had told of 
flocks of pigeons that covered the sky in New England ; they came from 
an island three miles wide by twenty long. What could one not expect 
of a man who told such tales? Gangraena, III, 127. 



104 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

were above using them for party purposes. In 
June of 1645, James Cranford, a zealous Presby- 
terian, got into trouble by accusing Crewe, Vane, 
Pierrepont, and St. John of such dealings with the 
enemy, -^ In the same month Parliament investi- 
gated similar rumors touching Denzil Holies, not- 
ably an assertion by Lord Savile that Holies had 
been in correspondence with Lord Digby. The 
investigation brought to light the fact that Holies 
had received a letter from Savile, written with 
"white ink," while that gentleman had been an 
ardent Royalist. On July 19, the House by a divi- 
sion of ninety-five to fifty-five voted that this did 
not amount to treasonable correspondence. ^^ 

Through this seemingly irrelevant incident, Lil- 
burne's enemies brought him into collision with the 
House of Commons. July 18, he had brought a 
witness to testify against Holies. While at West- 
minster the next day, he met three friends who had 
preferred to a committee of the Commons charges 
of improper conduct by Speaker Lenthall. The 
three men retailed their charges to Lilbume, and 
he brought Colonel Roe to hear also. Colonel King 
and John Bast\vick at once laid an information 
with the House of Commons to the effect that a 
certain Captain Hawkins, after having talked with 
Lilbume and Colonel Ireton, had come to the in- 

-^ Covvnons Journal, IV, 212, July 19, 1645. He was assessed dam- 
ages of £2,000 and committed to the Tower indefinitely. See ibid., IV, 
172, June 11, 1645; and Baillie, II, 277-280. 

29 Commom Journal, IV, 172, 212, 213. The test vote was taken on 
putting the question. 



FIRST RADICAL CRITICISM OP PARLIAMENT 105 

formers and repeated the charges against the 
speaker. The House forthwith voted Lilbume and 
Hawkins to the custody of the sergeant. ^^ 

Bastwick later tried with small success to dis- 
prove Lilbume's accusation that the information 
was malicious. Bastwick said he had supposed 
that Hawkins had told his story to Lilburne more 
fully, and that Lilbume would be able to inform 
further; but Bastwick had worded his information 
unnaturally with the apparent purpose of bringing 
Lilburne in as principal instead of accessory. But 
while disclaiming any malicious intent, Bastwick 
unconsciously revealed what was perhaps the real 
motive for his persecution of Lilburne. In his 
Ivst Defence, he made no secret of his belief that 
the various persons concerned in the charges against 
Lenthall and Holies were members of a desperate 
Independent faction willing to attain its ends by 
the complete ruin of Presbyterianism and Parlia- 
ment alike. Therefore, it is very likely that on 
July 19 he had scented a deep-laid plot in the vari- 
ous conferences among the Independents at West- 
minster, and had hastened to strike at the man 
who seemed to him the ringleader. '^ 

On July 24, Lilbume was summoned before a 

'° InnoceTtcy And Truth Justified, p. 27; The Copy of a Letter, Prom 
Lieutenant ColoneU John Lilburne to a freind, Aug. 9, 1645, E. 296 (5). 
There is a second edition, E. 302 (17). A Ivst Defence of John Bastunck, 
p. 7. Apparently Bastwick's and King's information also included an 
inquisition into LenthaU's doings by the Surrey and Salters Hall commit- 
tees. Commons Journal, IV, 212, 213, 215. 

°^ Besides the Ivst Defence of John Bastwick, see also The Copy of a 
Letter, p. 10. 



106 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

committee of the House of Commons. When the 
chairman asked him a question evidently based on 
Bastwick's information, Lilburne refused to answer 
until he was informed of the charges against him; 
and he denounced as illegal the action of the House 
in committing him without specifying the cause of 
commitment. He was, therefore, recommitted. A 
pamphlet in which he retailed the committee's pro- 
ceedings and commented upon them came to the 
attention of the House of Commons August 9. A 
vote of the House empowered the committee to 
remand Lilburne to prison, if on inquiry it found 
him to be the author of the tract. On his refusal 
to answer questions, the committee accordingly 
sent him to Newgate. August 11, the House ap- 
proved this step and ordered that Lilburne be tried 
at the next quarter sessions. ^^ 

A petition in Lilburne's behalf signed by two or 
three thousand persons was presented to the House 
of Commons August 26. It asked that Lilburne 
might be removed from Newgate, his case reheard, 
and an allowance from his arrears assigned him 
for his support in prison. The House thereupon 
ordered two members to manage the charges against 
the prisoner at the next general session, and as- 
signed him a grant of one hundred pounds. It 
returned answer to the petitioners that inasmuch 

'2 The Copy of a Letter, p. 1. Commons Journal, IV, 235, 236, 237. 
According to Lilburne, Prynne and Bastwick tried to injure him by put- 
ting out libels in his name, calling on the people to rise in his behalf; 
these he disclaimed in a letter of August 21 to the lord mayor. In- 
nocency And Truth Justified, pp. 28, 29, 34. 



FIRST RADICAL CRITICISM OF PARLIAMENT 107 

as Lilburne did not acknowledge the justice of the 
House's dealing with him, the House could not re- 
gard the petition as timely. In October a session of 
Newgate began. Lilburne appeared in court and, 
finding that no charges had been brought against 
him by the House, appealed to the lord mayor and 
recorder for his liberty; but they informed him 
that they could only apply to the House of Com- 
mons on his behalf. On the recorder's application 
the House discharged him October 14.^^ 

Considerations of expediency can not have led 
Lilburne to refuse a reply to the questions of the 
committee. It is inconceivable that it could or 
would have dealt harshly with him had he answered 
its questions. In answering he could have said 
nothing that would have injured himself; and by 
keeping silence he could not have prevented the 
committee from discovering through other witnesses 
all that it could have learned from his answers. 
The only possible conclusion is that Lilburne had 
endured imprisonment rather than surrender what 
he considered to be a vital principle of personal 
liberty. ^''^ 

His imprisonment made clearer the existence of 
a party looking to him for leadership. Hawkins 
and his other friends gathered round him. Bast- 
wick sneeringly informs us that their watchword 

^^ Innocency And Truth Justified, pp. 29 S. Commons Journal, TV, 
253, 254, 307. 

^ Edwards states that Lilburne's unlicensed pamphlets against the 
Parliament, which sold at a high price, were inspired by greed. Gan- 
graena, I, 128. Why Lilburne should have risked the heavy sums due 
him from Parliament for such small stuff Edwards does not state. 



108 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

was the privileges of the subject as secured by 
Magna Charta and the Petition of Right. '^ Prynne 
has his instructive sarcasm to add to Bastwick's; 
it reveals Lilburne industriously engaged in a popu- 
lar propaganda. "I am credibly informed," says 
Prynne, "that this upstart monstrous Lawyer 
since he was called to the Barre at Newgate where 
he now practiseth, hath the Book of Statutes there 
lying open before him, which he reads and inter- 
prets to all the poore ignorant people that visit 
him, telling them, that he will in a few dayes make 
them understand the Lawes and Statutes of the 
Realm as exactly as any lawyer in the Kingdome."^^ 
A pamphlet, probably by Lilburne," affords 
additional evidence that a more or less self-con- 
scious radical Independent party existed; for Eng- 
land's Birth-right Justified, the pamphlet in ques- 
tion, is really a party declaration of faith, stating 
the radicals' grounds for dissatisfaction with the 
policy of the Long Parliament. The preamble 
addressed to "All the Free-borne people of Eng- 
land" comes as the natural utterance of men who 
had made Anti-Cavalierisme their text-book. It 
recites that the Independent party, in spite of its 

" A Ivst Defence of John Baslwick, p. 16. 

" The Lyar Confounded, p. 22. 

" E. 304 (17), Oct. 10, 1645. The author of Regall Tyrannic discov- 
ered, p. 3, says that the tract is not Lilbume's, as he is known to sign all 
his work. If, as is sometimes supposed, Regall Tyrannie is Lilbume's, 
the evidence would be against his authorship of England's Birth-right; 
but as Regall Tyrannie is not signed, the rule would militate against Lil- 
bume's authorship of that, and consequently against the authority of the 
statement in it. The internal evidence points to Lilburne as the author. 



FIRST RADICAL CRITICISM OF PARLIAMENT 109 

struggle for English freedom, is now likely through 
the delinquency of those In power to lose all it had 
fought for, 

. and perceiving themselves now at last to be 
in a far worse condition, both in number and power (their 
Lives and Estates, yea and precious time also being so far 
spent) then they were at the first; and besides, like to loose 
all, and scarcely to have (or leave) so much as their Lives, 
Lawes, or Liberties for a prey. 

And seeing by manifold examples of grievous experience, 
that neither Petitions can be easily accepted, justice truely 
administred, the Presses equally opened, the cryes of the 
poor heard, the teares of the oppressed considered, the 
sighes of the Prisoners regarded, the miseries of the widow 
and Fatherlesse pittyed, nor scarcely any that are in dis- 
tresse relieved, but Lawes any way wrested, most of our 
freedoms restrained. Ordinances, Protestations, Oathes, and 
Covenants shghted, the hearts of all Estates, King, Parlia- 
ment, Priest and People obdured, the wicked for the most 
part absolved, the just oftentimes condemned, and most 
of all in Authority perjured, not only by breaking that 
solemne Oath, which themselves did make, and compelling 
others to take, but neverthelesse, by persecuting those who 
make conscience to keep it, even because they will not break 
it 

To such a pass did Lilburne and his friends believe 
the Long Parliament's shortcomings had brought 
its party. ^^ 

The specific remedies proposed by the pamphlet 
are of as much interest as its party consciousness. 
Its wish that the law like the Bible were all in 

'' Lilburne's irritation at the failure of Parliament to recompense his 
services by granting him his arrears and Star- Chamber damages made 
all its actions seem to him unjust, selfish, and callous. He wrote repeat- 
edly with heat of its neglect in allowing the widows and children of those 
who had served it to lack bread, while at the same time it gave its members 
allowances of three and four pounds a week and lucrative places. The 
Copy of a Letter, p. 16. When all possible excuses have been made for 



110 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

English summarizes the meaning of the whole later 
Leveller movement. The pamphlet further sug- 
gests that the charters of London be put in English 
so that every citizen may know his own rights; in 
this connection it quotes with approval a petition 
of the City of London of April 15, 1645, asking 
that the citizens may have freedom to petition 
Parliament directly and not merely through the 
common council. England's Birth-right goes on to 
complain of the burden the excise lays on the poor; 
of the monopolies, notably that of the Merchant 
Adventurers on exported cloth;*' of the censorship 
ot the press,*" and of the restriction to licensed 
preachers^i of the right to preach. 

The radical platform criticises the constitutional 
status as well as the policy of the Long Parliament. 
Annual elections should be held, so that the people 
may remove worthless members and replace them 

them, the. fact remains that members of the Long Parliament in the later 
years of the war were self-seeking, greedy, and corrupt. Charges of 
corruption were hurled at the members from all sides; the device of seven- 
teenth-century finance of allowing public servants to make disbursements 
for the pubhc service from their own pockets, and then reimbursing them 
in lump sums makes it well-nigh impossible at this day to say how far 
corruption extended. No financial expert could today clear up for us 
the accounts of the Long Parliament. 

" Pp. 8, 22, 44. See Note on p. 118. 

*" The repression of unlicensed printing by the Stationers Company 
is too familiar to dwell on. Radical Independent tracts, such as the 
Martin Marpriest tracts and Lilbume's first three pamphlets of 1645, 
could not be printed under license and had to issue from hidden presses. 
January 17, 1644/5, the Stationers were taken to task by the House of 
Commons for remissness in allowing books like Lilbume's letter to Prynne 
to circulate. 

*^ November 15, 1644, the House of Commons resolved that no person 
unordained in some recognized reformed church be allowed to preach. 



FIRST RADICAL CRITICISM OF PARLIAMENT 111 

with better ones. Members of Parliament should 
be compelled to abandon their lucrative offices and 
be paid for their services in Parliament; for it is 
against justice that legislators hold judicial offices, 
and thus execute the law as well as make it. It 
may be alleged that certain members of the Long 
Parliament such as Cromwell are performing nota- 
ble service in military commands; but Cromwell's 
design for a committee at which anyone oppressed 
by a Parliament member could find redress/^ shows 
that he is capable of even more notable service in 
his seat in the House of Commons. The radicals 
differed from the dominating party in maintaining 
that the victory against the king was to be won 
not in the field, but in the public opinion of the 
nation. 

In its demand that the war be turned into a 
democratic crusade against tyranny, England's 
Birth-right reminds one of Anti-Cavalierisme. It 
appeals to the people to rise as one man through- 
out the kingdom, force the king's remaining garri- 
sons to surrender, and thus prevent the war from 
dragging on for another year.^' Moreover, the rea- 

*- December 1, 1645, the House of Commons set up a committee to 
deal with the cases of members who had accepted bribes; any person was 
to have Hberty to inform at it. Journal, IV, 362. The exemption of 
members of Parliament and their servants from civil suits enabled them to 
evade payment of their debts; the injustice of this rankled in the hearts 
of many who had had dealings with them. The privilege was greatly 
reduced in extent in 1648 and 1649. 

*^ Pp. 38, 30, 31. The idea recalls the WindmiU Tavern meeting. 
The expedient had been proposed several times before — notably in 1643. 
Commons Journal, III, 91, May 18, 1643. See also Lightfoot, p. 9, 
Aug. 14, 1643. 



112 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

son assigned against Parliament's permitting only 
licensed preaching is significant; licensed preachers 
are not the ones willing to go to the parts of the 
kingdom where they are most needed — where the 
people by ignorance were seduced to betray their 
liberties and take up arms for the king. By 1648 
the idea that the sole strength of tyranny has been 
popular ignorance and can be overcome only by 
popular education, dominates the Leveller program. 
The friends of liberty must appeal to the reason 
that is innate in every man; that reason when 
rightly fostered will enable him to distinguish politi- 
cal good from political evil. 

The most interesting feature for our purpose, 
however, both of England' s Birth-right and of several 
contemporary pamphlets by Lilburne is the scat- 
tered sentences and fragmentary statements that 
contain the crude material of new constitutional 
and legal theories. These pamphlets mark suc- 
cessive stages in Lilbume's constitutional thinking. 
Thus in August of 1645 his ideas were incoherent 
and contradictory; but by October he had thought 
his way to a clear and consistent statement of the 
English constitution and of the nature of the secu- 
rity it afforded to the rights of individuals. 

The title of the August pamphlet was The Copy 
of a Letter. It was rather incoherent in its legal 
doctrine, the noteworthy feature being Lilburne's 
novel use of Magna Charta and the Petition of 
Right in his argument against the committee's 
right to proceed against him. During the struggle 
with the king those documents had been cited 



FIRST RADICAL CRITICISM OF PARLIAMENT 113 

often enough as safeguards to the Parliament and 
the nation against the king. The novelty in Lil- 
burne's use of them was his emphasis on the fact 
that they safeguarded certain rights and privileges 
not merely to the nation, but to individual men as 
well. "By vertue of being a freeman," wrote Lil- 
burne, " I conceive I have as true a right to all the 
priviledges that doe belong to a free-man, as the 
greatest man in England." He distinguished as 
pertinent to his own case the privileges assured in 
the thirty-ninth and fortieth articles of Magna 
Charta;^^ but he did not distinctly assert those 
privileges against the House of Commons. He 
drew a comparison between the actions for which 
Parliament abolished the Court of Star Chamber, 
and the doings of the Commons' committees in 
sitting with closed doors and questioning men under 
accusation. Yet even in these particulars he was 
willing to allow the Parliament itself reasonable 
latitude when it had treasons to search for, or 
other business of public concern requiring secrecy.'*^ 
England's Birth-right Justified contained a closer 
and more distinct statement of the powers of Par- 
liament than any other of Lilburne's pamphlets of 
1645. 

**Lilbiime quoted from the 9th H. EH Ch. 1. "No freeman may be 
taken and imprisoned and disceased of his freehold, or his liberty, or his 
free Customes, or Out-lawed, or Banished, or any way destroyed; neither 
will we goe upon him, neither passe upon him but by the lawfull tryall 
of his equalls, or by the Law of the Land, justice and Right we will sell 
to none, we will denie to none, nor will deferre to none." P. 2. 

« Op. cit., p. 14. 



114 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

It is confessed by all rationall men, that the Parliament 
hath a power to annull a Law, and to make a new Law, and 
to declare a Law, but knowne Laws in force & unrepealed 
by them, are a Rule (so long as they so remain) for all the 
Commons of England whereby to walk: and upon rationall 
grounds is conceived to be binding to the very Parliament 
themselves as well as others. And though by their legisla- 
tive power, they have Authority to make new Laws, yet no 
free-man of England is to take notice (or can he) of what 
they intend till they declare it; neither can they, as is con- 
ceived, justly punish any man for walking closely to the 
knowne and declared Law, though it crosse some pretended 
priviledge of theirs, remaining onely in their own breasts. 

The law of the land was men's authority for obedi- 
ence to Parliament. If Parliament by Its actions 
taught them to disregard that law, not only was 
its own authority at an end, but property and civili- 
zation Itself were at the mercy of brute force. Nor 
could It be argued that all the people save mem- 
bers of Parliament were bound by the law. In 
such a case the people would have given the Parlia- 
ment a power to harm and not to help them; and 
no law could give Parliament such a power. Since 
by the Parliament's own maxim the letter of all 
laws must be governed by their equity, It was 
impossible that any law could be so interpreted as 
to free Parliament from the law. 

Lilburne deduced important consequences from 
the proposition that Parliament was bound to walk 
according to the law. First, Parliament In Its 
executive actions must accept the guidance of the 
equity as well as the letter of the Star-Chamber 
act, and the Petition of Right. The equity of 
these laws condemned the late actions of parlla- 



FIRST RADICAL CRITICISM OF PARLIAMENT 115 

mentary committees; for ex officio examinations 
violated the spirit of the Great Charter, the Petition 
of Right, the Star-Chamber act, the Protestation, 
the Covenant, and above all "the infallible Rules 
of Gods own most sacred Word, which forbids 
that any man should answer upon questions to 
accuse, condemne and consequently kill and destroy 
himself, or that any man should be condemned 
before he be heard. "^^ To support his interpreta- 
tion of the laws of England, Lilburne appealed to 
the law of God. 

His readiness to seek a higher justification for 
the laws of England became more apparent in a 
third pamphlet, Innocency And Truth Justified; in 
1645 as in 1642 constitutional discussion led to 
reflection on the principles of government. Lil- 
burne quoted Henry Parker's statements on the 
origin of government in compact between the gov- 
ernor and the governed, and on the people's right 
of binding their government; but as Lilburne's 
logic was not disturbed like Parker's by the idea 
of the indivisibility of Parliament and nation, he 
concluded that Parliament itself was bound by the 
compact with the people in which its power had 
originated. Moreover, in support of his conclu- 
sion Lilburne appealed to the law of reason. As 
he conceived it, the law of reason existed by virtue 
of a perceptive power innate in every man, taught 
or untaught, enabling him to distinguish right and 
wrong, good and evil. The law of reason taught 
every human being to know what was just and 

^ England's Birth-right, pp. 2, 3, 16, 48. 



116 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

what was expedient for himself and his fellows. 
The Mosaic code, the law of God himself, was 
simply the most perfect of exemplifications of the 
law of reason. It necessarily followed that any 
human government could be just only in so far as 
its laws accorded with the principles of right reason 
and justice implanted in the hearts of all mankind.*^ 
Three months before Innocency And Truth Jus- 
tified appeared, an anonymous pamphlet entitled 
Englands Lamentable Slaverie had expounded far 
more radical doctrine.^* After a few passing com- 
pliments in which the author assured Lilburne of 
his personal regard notwithstanding their differ- 
ences of religion, he cited with approval Lilburne's 
stand for his constitutional rights against Parlia- 
ment. For, while he was not the first to go to 
prison, rather than answer illegal questions of com- 
mittees, the unknown assured him, he was the first 
to ground his refusal plainly on Magna Charta, 
or to draw the obvious and illuminating compari- 
son with the Star-Chamber procedure. He must 
have known that such assertions would not meet 
the approval of Parliament men who considered 
their power absolute and unrestrained by Magna 
Charta or by any other law. "Others there are," 
the author continued, " (as good Wise and juditious 

*'' Innocency And Truth Justified, pp. 11-13, 28, 38, 57-62. The dis- 
cussion of the law of reason is drawn from the law dialogue of the Doctor 
and Student. 

<8 Oct. 11, 1645, E. 304 (19). At a guess one would assign the pam- 
phlet to William Walwyn. The view of Magna Charta expressed in it 
is the same as that in Juries justified, Dec. 2, 1650, E. 618 (9), p. 5. The 
author's analysis of his difference from Lilburne in religion, and his 
views of toleration are in a spirit characteristic of Walwyn. See p. 247. 



FIRST RADICAL CRITICISM OF PARLIAMENT 117 

men) who affirme, that a Parliamentary authority 
is a power intrusted by the people (that chose 
them) for their good, safetie and freedome, and 
therefore that a Parliament cannot justlie doe any 
thing to make the people lesse safe or lesse free 
then they found them." 

So far the unknown had merely approved Lil- 
burne's reliance on Magna Charta. Now he made 
a startling commentary of his own. "Magna 
Charta (you must observe) is but a part of the 
peoples rights and liberties, being no more but 
what with much striving and fighting, was by the 
blood of our ancestors wrestled out of the pawes 
of those Kings, who by force had conquered the 
Nation, changed the lawes and by strong hand 

held them in bondage " for, "though 

Magna Charta be so little as lesse could not be 
granted with any pretence of freedome", kings had 
often with the unnatural assistance of Parliament 
striven to make it less. For Parliament had often 
in the past been amused with the making of trivial 
statutes, and its members thereby diverted from 
thought of their freedoms; and when waked out of 
their stupor all they could do was to call loudly 
for Magna Charta, "calling that mess of pottage 
their birth right."-'' 

Clearly here was an application of the doctrine 
of natural right far beyond any that Lilburne had 
so far imagined. He had taken his stand on Magna 
Charta, considering it as an excellent epitome of 
the people's liberties as set forth by the law of 

*° Englands Lamentable Slaverie, pp. 3, 4. 



118 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

God and the law of reason. Now he was told that 
the people's liberties guaranteed by those two laws 
were far wider than the narrow scope of the parch- 
ment charter in the Tower. But the author reas- 
suringly told Lilburne that only so much the more 
was he on solid ground when standing on Magna 
Charta. True, some things in it as, for example, 
the constitution of the church, could be altered; it 
was always in the Parliament's power to make the 
people freer. But on the popular rights guaran- 
teed by Magna Charta, Parliament could not en- 
croach. There was in Englands Lamentable Slaverie 
the promise of a radicalism far beyond Lilburne's. 
Englands Lamentable Slaverie foreshadowed the 
transformation through which Lilburne's ideas were 
to pass in the next twelvemonth; but meanwhile 
his thinking, if slower, had led him to important 
results. Formerly a loyal servant of the Long 
Parliament, he had begun to criticise its policy. 
In particular, he had criticised that policy as per- 
mitting intolerance and injustice to flourish in the 
nation; more generally, he had demanded that 
Parliament make its own actions accord with the 
known law of the kingdom. In criticising also the 
policy by which the war had been carried on, he 
had implied' his own faith, and the faith of those 
for whom he spoke, in the nation's capacity for a 
measure of democratic government. 

NOTE 

The Monopoly of the Merchant Adventurers 

In view of Lilburne's repeated attacks on the Merchant Adventurers' 
monopoly and on Parliament for supporting it, a word of explanation is 



FIRST RADICAL CRITICISM OF PARLIAMENT 119 

needed. The House of Commons had in the early stages of the war 
been indebted to the Merchant Adventurers for loans. See Journal for 
Jan. 12, 1643/4, Feb. 23., etc.. Ill, 364, 405. September 11, 1643, the 
House of Commons had confirmed their monopoly and their right to 
administer an oath such as should be approved by both Houses, and to 
imprison their members for certain offenses against the company. A 
proviso accompanied the confirmation expressly sa\ang all rights de- 
pending on ancient charters or acts of Parliament. Journal, III, 237. 
The amended ordinance passed both Houses in October. 

There is a very able discussion of the economic results of the Merchant 
Adventurers' cloth-exporting monopoly in Innocency And Truth Justi- 
fied, pp. 48 ff., apparently based on a book called A Discourse for free 
trade. Lilburne maintained that the monopolists as a class had been 
supple to tyranny such as Strafford's. He quoted Pym's declaration 
that debasing the spirits of the king's subjects was more treasonable 
than debasing his coin; and argued that such was the effect of a monopoly. 
He objected to the Adventurers' power of imposing an oath of fidelity 
to their officers and statutes. He emphasized the saving clause in the 
parliamentary ordinance quoted above, showing that it could be used 
to root up the whole monopoly. If, as Parker had insisted, rulers were 
intrusted with power for the good of the ruled, what right had Parliament 
to make men slaves by a law, as they had done in the case of the Adven- 
turers? Parliament's action afforded Lilburne one more text for his 
sermon that the law must be in accord with reason. A pamphlet of Jan- 
uary 26, 1645/6, A Plea for Free-Mens Liberties, by one, Thomas Johnson, 
followed the same line of reasoning. E. 319 (1). 



CHAPTER IV 

1646. The Radical Attack on Arbitrary Power 

i. the anti-monarchical element among the 
independents in i 646 

TN 1646 Lilburne and his associates accomplished 
^ the task of fusing their scattered criticism of 
the Long ParUament into a new political philoso- 
phy. They asserted that all power not originating 
in the people's assent was arbitrary and tyrannical. 
Accordingly, they denied that the king and the 
House of Lords could justly claim any authority 
over the nation, and ascribed supreme power to 
the House of Commons as the representative of 
the people. In support of their assertions they 
advanced a theory of natural right based on the 
political writings of 1 642-1 644, but in content quite 
different from them, and in many respects a start- 
ling anticipation of Locke and Rousseau. 

In part, the new constitutional position of the 
radicals represented merely the natural develop- 
ment of the Independent party. Lilburne could 
still consistently regard his political affiliations as 
Independent, partly because of his interest in the 
principle of liberty of conscience at stake in the 
ecclesiastical controversy until that controversy 
reached a temporary solution in July, but partly 
also because the winter and spring of 1646 had 

120 



RADICAL ATTACK ON ARBITRARY POWER 121 

emphasized the fundamental differences of princi- 
ple between Presbyterianism and Independency. 
While Presbyterians were becoming more conserva- 
tive politically, Independents — at least a certain 
circle of them somewhat wider than Lilbume's 
following — were becoming more radical. Elated 
at the ill-success of the Presbyterians with the 
"recruited" House of Commons, they extolled the 
authority of the House, and no longer urged the 
limitations on its ecclesiastical powers that they 
had stated in 1644 and 1645. Already the radical 
Independents were writing of Presbyterianism and 
kingship as two forms of slavery. 

The Presbyterians more and more defended the 
few surviving elements of the old political consti- 
tution; more and more they insisted on the estab- 
lishment of church government according to the 
Word of God, not the Commons' idea of expedi- 
ency. Their bitterness was pardonable. The rapid 
spread of strange, extravagant, or vicious religious 
doctrines, and uncouth or even immoral religious 
practices, proved to them the need for the sword 
of ecclesiastical discipline they had forged in the 
Assembly; and the Erastian House of Commons 
seemed ready to blunt it in their hands. The only 
satisfaction left private persons like Thomas Ed- 
wards was annoying the Independents by cata- 
loguing the hundreds of religious and political va- 
garies the time afforded — not omitting the politi- 
cal teachings of Lilburne.^ The corporation of 

^ In the three parts of Gangraena, Feb. 26, 1645/6, May 28, Dec. 28, 
1646, E. 323 (2), E. 338 (12), E. 368 (5). 



122 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

London could afford to speak more boldly than 
Edwards. On May 26 it presented humble remon- 
strances to each of the Houses of Parliament. But 
while the remonstrance to the Presbyterian House 
of Lords was caressing in tone, that to the House 
of Commons informed the House in so many words 
that its conduct was leading the sectaries to hope 
for a toleration not warranted by the Solemn 
League and Covenant, and such as the supporters 
of the remonstrance were pledged to oppose. 

The Independents were ready with an answer. 
On the day that the City Remonstrance was pre- 
sented, Lilburne handed to members of Parliament 
in Westminster Hall a tract entitled A Word in 
season. It warned Parliament against suffering 
any intruder to interpret its obligations under the 
Covenant lest, by so doing, it commit the great 
treason of giving itself a master. Addressing the 
supporters of the remonstrance, the tract accused 
them of presumption in venturing to speak for the 
whole people of England; the remonstrators were 
but a small part of the kingdom, and even if they 
were the whole, it was not their place to speak as 
they had done. Parliament was absolutely free to 
follow the dictates of its own understanding and 
conscience, informed by the Word of God and the 
principles of right reason, in choosing the course 
that would most probably lead to the welfare and 
safety of the people. ^ 

2 E. 1184 (3). Thomason's copy is annotated: "Given about West- 
minster hall By Lilburne ye day ye cittie Remonstrance was presented 
wch was 26 May." The catalogue of the Thomason tracts assigns it to 



RADICAL ATTACK ON ARBITRARY POWER 123 

Two pamphlets continued this line of reasoning. 
One of them, The Interest of England Maintained,^ 
was prefaced by a disquisition on the power of 
Parliament, and the iniquity of anyone who sought 
to prescribe to it, with special application to the 
authors of the remonstrance. The Interest of Eng- 
land Maintained was plain spoken when it dis- 
cussed the king's claims to consideration; it re- 
marked that in the past the reigns of the best of 
kings had been tyrannical, and raised the question 
whether it was not best for the Parliament to use 
its military advantage over Charles in such a way 
as to secure in the most effectual manner possible 
the dawning freedom of the people from danger of 
him and his adherents. The words would permit 
of some extreme interpretations. 

One, John Bellamy, undertook to uphold the Pres- 
byterian side of the controversy. The second of 
the Independent tracts mentioned above, A Moder- 
ate Reply To The Citie Remonstrance,'^ had criticised 
the remonstrance for attributing only a share of 
the supreme power to the House of Commons ; and 
the author of the Interest of England Maintained, 
by ascribing supremacy to the two Houses, had 
excluded the king from any share in it. Bellamy 

"J. Sadler"; on what authority, I do not know. Its make-up is identical 
with that of two books of Walwyn's in reply to Edwards; Walwyn men- 
tions it as his in The Fountain Of Slaunder Discovered, May 30, 1649, E. 
557 (4), p. 7, and in Walwyns Just Defence. 

The two remonstrances are in E. 338 (7), and E. 339 (1). 

'Junes, 1646, E. 340 (5). 

^June 12, 1646, E. 340 (20). Bellamy's book is A Vindication Of 
The Humble Remonstrance, July 6, E. 343 (2), pp. 15 ff. 



124 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

cited these passages and added to them two or 
three from Lilburne's books, which attributed the 
supreme power to the Commons, and to the people 
a power to recall their representatives in Parlia- 
ment. From this evidence Bellamy argued that 
the principles of the Independents would inevitably 
lead to the overthrow of the ancient constitution 
of king, Lords, and Commons. 

July 24 a pamphleteer, answering Bellamy, 
avowed the doctrine of the supremacy^ of the 
Commons in Parliament. "What meane you by 
fundamental!? you say the King Lords, and Com- 
mons are the three Estates, of which the funda- 
mental! constitution of this Kingdome is made up, 
are there three fundamentals? I confesse I have 
not understood so much: I ever thought there had 
been but one, and that I took to be the Com- 
mons First, because I ever thought, 

that the Commons made the King, and the King 
made the Lords, and so the Commons were the 
Prime foundation. 

"Secondly, I ever took this for a truth likewise, 
that both the King and the Lords, were advanced 
for the benefit, quiet, and welfare of the Commons, 
and not the Commons made for them, and if I 
was deceived, the Common maxim of salus populi 
suprema Lex deceived me." 

Bellamy had succeeded in fixing political doc- 
trines on the Independents that, when carried to 
their logical result, would root up the authority of 
both king and Lords. Within a fortnight of the 

' The City-Remonstrance Remonstrated, John Price, E. 345 (18), p. 23. 



RADICAL ATTACK ON ARBITRARY POWER 125 

City Remonstrance, Lilburne had embarked on a 
contest with the Lords that led him to this very 
conclusion. With Presbyterianism temporarily 
checked, the little group of Independents surround- 
ing Lilburne abandoned its agitation of purely 
ecclesiastical questions, and became absorbed in 
radical and far-reaching projects of constitutional 
change. 

II. THE RADICAL ATTACK ON THE HOUSE OF LORDS 

Lilburne's activity in prosecuting his impeach- 
ment of Colonel King earned him as an indirect 
consequence the hostility of the Lords. After his 
release from prison, in October of 1645, he con- 
tinued to press his charges against King in the 
House of Commons.^ In April of 1646 King, treat- 
ing Lilburne's charges as slander, brought suit In 
common pleas for damages. Lilburne considered 
that a witness to a charge of high treason depend- 
ing before the House of Commons was not bound 

• He managed to advance a little the discharge of his old Star-Cham- 
ber sentence, securing also a vote from the Lords of £2,000 damages. 
With his arrears he made very little headway. At the committee to 
which he was referred for the settlement of his arrears and accounts he 
found his old adversary, Prynne, who required him to turn in a sworn 
statement of his claims. Lilburne demurred to this on the ground that 
he had lost many of his papers at the raising of the siege of Newark and 
accordingly could not produce a statement that he could swear to. 
Accordingly Prynne, after an examination of matters involved brought 
him in a debtor for £2,000 and, adding insult to injury, later held him 
up in a report to the Commons as an example of irregularity but, as 
nearly as can be judged from the Journal, without deigning to go into 
particulars. Cf. Innocency And Truth Justified, p. 68; The resolved 
mans Resolution, pp. 31 iJ; Commons Journal, V, 62. 



126 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

to answer for his testimony before any inferior 
court.' He instructed his lawyer to enter this 
defense; further, he wrote a letter to Justice Reeves 
of the court of Common Pleas protesting against 
the court's action in entertaining King's suit. The 
publication of this letter, under the title of The 
lust Mans lustification, embroiled the author with 
the House of Lords. In recounting his troubles 
with Colonel King he had alluded slightingly to 
the Earl of Manchester, saying that King's chap- 
lains had persuaded Manchester's to throw a mist 
over their lord's eyes, that he might see no fault 
in Colonel King. Mild as this seems, it was too 
strong for the Lords who were extremely punc- 
tilious for the reverence due a member of their 
House. Their punctiliousness, indeed, had seemed 
to increase as in the course of the war their posi- 
tion in the state had grown more and more pre- 
carious. Several times as a result of their summary 
proceedings against commoners who had been 
guilty of breach of privilege of the peers, they had 
come into collision with the House of Commons.^ 
Apparently not profiting by their past experience, 
the Lords on June lo summoned Lilburne before 
them. 

Lilburne acted on the principle that the Lords 
had no authority to summon or arraign commoners 
before them. He attended on the summons only 
from respect and civility to his social superiors, for 

' The lust Mans lustification, pp. 2-3; The Free-mans Freedome Vin- 
dicated, June 22, 1646, E. 341 (12), pp. 1-2. 
' See Note I on p. 153. 



RADICAL ATTACK ON ARBITRARY POWER 127 

he considered that as the summons was illegal he 
was not bound to obey it. He urged the officer 
who came for him to inform the House that such 
must be his answer at their bar. Before he was 
summoned in, he begged one of the peers to bid the 
Lords consider before they forced a contest on the 
principle involved; for Lilburne, by his own ac- 
count, would willingly have avoided a collision 
with the Lords, could he have done so without 
betraying the liberties of Englishmen. In spite of 
all his efforts, he was called in and asked if he knew 
of the lust Mans Justification. For reply he in- 
quired if there were any formal charges laid against 
him; and finding that he was held to the question 
asked him, he handed in a protestation. Naturally 
the clerk would not receive it, and when Lilburne 
withdrew, it was thrown after him. He had to 
wait in suspense for but a short time before a war- 
rant came to commit him to Newgate for his con- 
tempt in handing in the protestation. Lilburne 
took up the gage of battle. He at once drew up 
a petition to the Commons asking protection, and 
urging that they release him from his illegal im- 
prisonment and assign him damages for it. In his 
protestation he had asserted that the Lords derived 
their authority from prerogative, and not from any 
trust committed to them by the Commons of Eng- 
land, "the originall and fountaine of power." He 
now addressed the House of Commons as "the 
chosen and betrusted Commissioners of all the 
Commons of England .... unto whom all 
the Commons of England have given so much of 



128 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

their Power, as to Inable you alone, to doe all 
things whatsoever for their weale, safety, peace, 
and prosperity, the end of all Government."^ 
Thus he read the Lords out of the government 
altogether. 

A few days later Lilburne published a book that 
plunged him deeper into trouble. This was The 
Free-mans Freedome Vindicated. In it he made a 
few remarks on Manchester that were really worthy 
the Lords' attention. Accordingly, on June 22 they 
issued a writ to the keeper of Newgate commanding 
that Lilburne be brought before them next day. 
Lilburne refused to obey the order except under 
force. When he was forbidden to talk to his friends 
as he waited in the Painted Chamber, he fiercely 
retorted that he would talk until the Lords, exceed- 
ing the cruelty he had found in the bishops, saw fit 
to cut out his tongue, and sew up his mouth. Con- 
tumacious conduct was all that the Lords could have 
expected of him. Nor were they disappointed. 
By declining to kneel at their bar, he refused to 
acknowledge their authority over him, and they 
could only recommit him to Newgate.^" 

The Lords proceeded with his trial July 10. 

® Lards Journal, VIII, 368, 370; The Free-mans Freedome Vindicated, 
pp. 3-6, 9. 

1" The lust Man In Bonds, June 29, 1646, E. 342 (2), pp. 3-4; An 
Anatomy of the Lords Tyranny and iniusticc Exercised upon Lieu. Col. 
lohn Lilburne, Nov. 13, 1646, E. 362 (6), p. 4; Londons Liberty In 
Chains, pp. 24-26; Lords Journal, VIII, 388. In the second book men- 
tioned he picks a number of technical flaws in the warrant recommitting 
him; the Lords had no jurisdiction, the warrant was not under hand and 
seal, no cause was specified in it, etc. 



RADICAL ATTACK ON ARBITRARY POWER 129 

The first article of the charge against him covered 
the words of The lust Mans lustification. The 
remaining ones included the obnoxious parts of 
The Free-mans Freedome, and his conduct at the 
bar of the House. ^^ When Lilburne was brought in 
to answer the charge July ii, he stopped his ears 
that he might not hear it read, saying that he 
appealed to the House of Commons and would 
stand to that resolution "as long as he had life". 
A second time he did the same thing. He was 
sent out to give him an opportunity for reflection; 
when he remained defiant, the House proceeded 
to judgment. It sentenced him to a fine of two 
thousand pounds and seven years' imprisonment, 
and pronounced him thenceforth incapable of pub- 
lic employment. Further, it ordered to be burned 
publicly the two pamphlets whose so-called sedi- 
tious utterances had brought this fate upon him.^^ 
Repeated petitions to the House of Commons at 
last induced it to consider Lilbume's case. It 
appointed a committee under the chairmanship of 

'^ Lords Journal, VIIT, 426-432. Lilburne argued that it was unjust 
to charge him with things that he had done in the heat of an unjust 
imprisonment, such as those of which the later articles accused him. 
Anatomy of the Lords Tyranny, p. 7. 

*2 Lords Journal, VIII, 432. The warrant issued to carry Lilburne 
to the Tower contained a provision that his keeper should see to it that 
he published no more scandalous pamphlets. The keeper could devise 
no other way of doing this than by ordering that no one, not even Mrs. 
Lilburne, should speak to Lilburne save in his keeper's presence; if Mrs. 
Lilburne were allowed this privilege she must be imprisoned with him. 
This restraint the Lords ordered continued till the prisoner gave suffi- 
cient bail not to write any more scandalous books. The prohibition on 
visits from Mrs. Lilburne, however, was taken off September 16. Ihid., 
pp. 435, 491. See Note II, p. 154. 



130 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

Harry Marten to inquire into the Lords' proceed- 
ings. On October 27 and November 6 Lilburne 
explained his case before this committee, and de- 
fended his position as to the Lords' lack of juris- 
diction. November 9, he delivered his argument 
to Marten in writing, and published it as An 
Anatomy of the Lords Tyranny. Beyond acquaint- 
ing the public with his case, however, his hearings 
seemed to bring him no nearer to freedom. 

Probably Lilbume's friends hoped to secure his 
release only by arousing public opinion against the 
House of Lords and the general shortcomings of 
the government. Accordingly the radical pam- 
phlets did not confine their attention to the wrong 
done to Lilburne himself. Richard Overton repre- 
sented him as a martyr who suffered because his 
writings endangered corrupt interests — arbitrary 
power, the presumption, arrogance, and intol- 
erance of the clergy, the oppressive legal pro- 
ceedings forced on the nation by the Norman con- 
quest, the monopolies of trade. ^* Further, the 
radical group linked Lilburne's case with those of 
other men who could be represented as victims of 
arbitrary authority. ^^ Several such instances were 
at hand. Early in 1645 John Musgrave had come 
to London to push charges of treachery made by 

" An Alarum To the House of Lords, July 31, 1646, E. 346 (8), pp. 7-8. 
Overton was suspected of printing this book, and it is in his style. 

^*A word to the Wise, Jan. 26, 1645/6, E. 318 (5), contains advertise- 
ments of Innocency And Truth Justified, and England's Birth-right. The 
preface to the first-named book would suggest that some of Lilburne's 
friends had taken up Musgrave's case. An Alarum To the House of 
Lords mentions the books of Musgrave and Larner. 



RADICAL ATTACK ON ARBITRARY POWER 131 

the men of Westmoreland and Cumberland against 
Richard Barwis, member for Carlisle. The House 
of Commons, so Musgrave believed, first impeded 
his efforts, and then imprisoned him. In 1646 
the House of Lords successively imprisoned William 
Larner, his brother, and his servant for selling radi- 
cal books. The Lords imprisoned Richard Over- 
ton for printing such a book; for a similar offense 
it soon after imprisoned his wife and his brother. 
In all these latter cases, the prisoners pleaded the 
rights of commoners against the Lords; and in 
none of them did the House of Commons act with 
more expedition than it showed in the case of 
Lilburne. 

Yet the radicals did not visit the same castiga- 
tion on the House of Commons as on the House of 
Lords. To a dispassionate observer, the Lower 
House would have appeared an accomplice with the 
Lords in a series of high-handed attempts to sup- 
press freedom of speech and of the press; attempts 
each of which furnished the radical presses with 
fresh ammunition. But since the House of Com- 
mons was the center of the radicals' ideal con- 
stitution, they addressed it with respect, imploring 
it to assume the position of sovereignty which 
they assigned it. 

III. THE RADICAL POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IN 1 646 

In the course of 1646 there can be traced a dis- 
tinct development in the radical program, both in 
the reforms sought and in the political and con- 
stitutional basis on which they were posed. The 



132 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

simple demand that Parliament walk according to 
the law was amplified, till out of it there evolved 
a new constitution for England. The specific 
measures proposed tended to be less destructive 
and more constructive. Among them a few may 
be singled out for especial consideration: reform of 
the common law, decentralization of government, 
and restoration to the citizens of London of a voice 
in their cit^^'s affairs. 

Traces of dissatisfaction with the law and its 
administration may be found in pamphlets of 1645, 
Lilbume had then wished that Parliament would 
substitute for the cumbrous, expensive, and intri- 
cate common law a few rules that should be simple 
and easily understood; would, he said, that the law, 
like the Bible, were published in English! In gen- 
eral, however, he had been content to base his con- 
test with the House of Commons on the law as 
revealed in Magna Charta, though writers had not 
been wanting to inform him that, when tried by the 
natural rights of the people. Magna Charta itself 
was but a mess of pottage.^* 

But Lilbume had himself developed a similar 
antagonism to the common law in his The lust 
Mails Iiistification, which he had written in June 
of 1646 when confronted with a common law-suit 
based on what he considered a vexatious techni- 
cality. The common law, according to The lust 
Mans lustification, was a badge of slavery imposed 
on the free people of England by the Norman con- 
quest. In judgments like the ship-raoney judg- 

^^ Supra, p. 117. 



RADICAL ATTACK ON ARBITRARY POWER 133 

ment, that had destroyed the liberties of the people, 
had not the common-law judges professed to base 
their reasoning on the common law? The rules of 
the common law were locked in the breasts of the 
judges and could nowhere be found and read by 
the plain people. What little was to be met with 
in books was in Latin or Norman-French, lan- 
guages which not one person in a thousand could 
understand; God, when he gave his law to Adam, 
had stated it plainly and had attached a fixed 
penalty. The iniquities of the common law were 
the work of William the Conqueror, who had de- 
prived England of the laws of Edward the Con- 
fessor and had set up the common-law courts in 
opposition to the courts of the hundred and shire. ^^ 
True, a few good laws could be found in Magna 
Charta and in the statutes, but too few to avail 
much. Magna Charta, though dearly purchased 
by Englishmen's blood in the past, and the best 
heritage that Englishmen possessed, in Lilbume's 
estimation fell far short of Edward the Confessor's 

" The process by which this and similar notions of Englbh legal his- 
tory developed would be an interesting study. Lilbume quotes in sup- 
port of the assertion chronicles like Speed, Daniel, and Martin. Lil- 
bume himself, in spite of the narrowness of his reading, seemed to have 
an instinct that rejected the more absurd conceits of the legists and 
chroniclers. From one point of view the Levellers' proposed constitu- 
tional settlement may be studied as a more or less conscious and correct 
attempt to return to the Anglo-Saxon constitution of England. Lil- 
bume, at least, seemed to sense correctly the broad outlines of that 
system. To show the mistakes into which men could fail with respect 
to Anglo-Saxon legal history, the author of Vox Plebis, a man of con- 
siderably wider reading than Lilbume, speaks of county courts in Al- 
fred's 38 counties, formed after the model of the courts of King's Bench 
and Common Pleas (p. 19); Horn is his authority! See Note If, p. 154. 



134 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

laws. He could only hope that Parliament would 
restore the essence of those laws by ordaining that 
all cases be tried in the counties and hundreds by 
elected juries, with appeal only to the Parliament. ^^ 
Lilburne's enthusiasm for the ancient courts of 
local jurisdiction leads naturally to the Levellers' 
desire for the restoration of local autonomy. In 
constitution, the England of the seventeenth cen- 
tury was more nearly a federation of counties than 
is ordinarily supposed. Local feeling In the coun- 
ties died hard. Men's pride in their counties was 
comparable to the pride of a citizen of the United 
States in his state. Manchester and Cromwell 
originally appointed Colonel King commander in 
Lincolnshire because he was a Lincolnshire man;'^ 
unless the county were led by a native, they could 
not have hoped for concerted and hearty action 
In It. At the outbreak of the war, men of York- 
shire and of Cheshire attempted to negotiate a 
neutrality between Parliament men and Royalists 
in the two counties. Moreover, a tract condemn- 
ing the Cheshire negotiation did not use the appar- 
ently obvious argument that, as Cheshire was an 
organic part of England, Its inhabitants could not 
hold aloof from supporting either English king or 
English Parliament; instead, the tract complained 
of the terms on which the neutrality had been 
negotiated, and questioned whether the negotiators 
had been duly empowered by their county. ^^ The 

" See Note III on p. 155. 
^^ The lust Mans lustification, p. 5. 

^^ Neutrality condemned by declaring the Reasons Why the Deputy- 
Lieufenants, intrusted by the Parliament for Cheshire, cannot agree to the 



RADICAL ATTACK ON ARBITRARY POWER 135 

Levellers probably felt the influence of this senti- 
ment when they proposed to preserve and increase 
local self-government. In 1646 Lilbume urged 
that there be a re-apportionment of members of 
the House of Commons among the counties accord- 
ing to the book of rates, and that the counties them- 
selves be left each to district and apportion its 
quota of members among its boroughs and hun- 
dreds. In later years even clearer evidences of the 
decentralizing tendency can be detected. 

The party that surrounded Lilburne in 1646 
began, or rather continued, a crusade to make the 

Treaty of Pacification made by some of that County; At Bunbery, December 
23, 1642, Jan. 6, 1642/3, E. 244 (41). "For whom is it so agreed? them- 
selves onely that subscribed? themselves with the rest of the Commis- 
sioners and Deputy Lieutenants? the Countrey? the neighbour Coun- 
tries ready to imbrace an Association? or the Parliament? If for them- 
selves, their conclusions are but personall and oblige no further: if for 
themselves with the rest of the Commissioners and Deputy Liuetenants, 
where and when was that authority deligated from all or any of those 
absent to them that were present? or if so, by what power was it so 
deligated? Instruments of all sorts, animate, as well as inanimate, 
having either no motion, or to none effect, without the concurrence or 
impulsion of their principall agent: if for the Country, where did they 
authorize them, especially that part of it unconsulted withall? Or when 
did the Country give either an expresse or implicite consent, that these 
alone, either to that, or to any other purpose should be their body rep- 
resentative. If for the neighbour Counties, certainely without their 
privity, and if no privity, no obligation: for who can imagine them so 
stupid as to consent to that, which is utterly destructive to their de- 
signes .... If for the Parliament, their Commission, or some 
Order from thence, will shew it; but it is very probable that they had 
thence, neither any such Commission nor Order." True, the pamphlet 
condemns the agreement as against the decision of the Supreme Court of 
Judicature on the Mihtia Ordinance; but the form of this statement is 
suggestive in itself. Early in 1643, the counties of Cornwall and Devon 
attempted to negotiate a peace between themselves. 



136 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

city government of London democratic. On Sep- 
tember 29, a citizen attempted to force himself into 
the meeting of aldermen and common council at 
which the lord mayor was to be chosen. Being 
forcibly excluded, he read to the assembled people 
a "Protestation". The city marshal thereupon 
carried the disturber before the court of mayor 
and aldermen, who examined him as to the author- 
ship of the Protestation, but did not push the mat- 
ter. On hearing of the incident, Lilburne bestirred 
himself, getting books and copies of records on the 
liberties of London. These he sent to a friend, 
who based on them a protest against the legality 
of the city government. The protest charged with 
usurpation aldermen and common councils past 
and present, in that they had excluded the "com- 
monalty" of the city from rights guaranteed by 
the charters, and had themselves presumed to make 
laws and choose mayors and sheriffs. The protest 
traced to the long continuance of this abuse the 
rise of monopolies in the city, the ignoble surrender 
in the case of ship money; worst of all, the men of 
the city so long as they submitted to rulers they 
had not chosen were freemen in name only.^o 

^^ Londons Liberty In Chains, pp. 7, 8, 13, 21. The Protestation 
based the people's rights to choose their mayor on the analogy of the 
election of coroners by the freemen of the counties. For a later stage of 
the movement, see Londons ancient Priviledges unvailed, s. sh., Sept. 28, 
1648, 669 f. 13 (23). 

Two minor points on which distinct utterances by the radicals occur 
in this period are imprisonment for debt, and the sitting of members of 
Parliament as judges in inferior courts; in the latter case they urged that 
all advantages of an appeal to the Parliament were lost, and that the ap- 
pellant was simply trying his case a second time before the man who had 



RADICAL ATTACK ON ARBITRARY POWER 137 

Turning to the political philosophy expounded 
by the radicals in 1646, one notes in it important 
differences from the orthodox parliamentary argu- 
ment of 1642-5. True, the one and the other 
can be reduced to propositions apparently similar 
in substance: no power is given by God to one 
man to rule over another man without that man's 
consent and agreement; all power of government 
therefore originates in agreement between the gov- 
ernors and the governed, perhaps agreement among 
the people before such things as governors exist. 
Accordingly arbitrary governments have no just 
authority because the law of nature, which is a 
preserver of man and not a destroyer, permits no 
man to give arbitrary rights over himself to another. 
All except the last of these propositions are deduci- 
ble from Parker; the last at least from Rutherford 
or Hunton. The newer writings are distinguished 
from the older by their spirit; once that is sensed, 
their novelty is startling. 

The first distinction between 1642 and 1646 to 
be noticed is the reliance of the radical authors of 
1646 on the law of God and the law of rea^ion. 
This distinction is one of emphasis. The idea is 
traceable in the earlier writers — the word "reason" 
itself is used by the writer who places the "reason" 
of the people in the House of Parliament.^^ But in 

at first decided it adversely. Liberty Vhidicated against Slavery, Aug. 2 1 , 
1646, E. 351 (2), p. 10; Another Word To The Wise, Feb. 20, 1645/6, E. 
323 (6). 

21 Supra, p. ii; Coke, Law Tracts, 1764 ed., p. 224, First Reading on 
Fines : " for the Laws of England are unwritten laws, but divinely cast into 
the hearts of men, and built upon the irremovable rock of reason." 



138 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

1646 the proposition that the law must be in accord 
with reason is the major premise of the new political 
logic. In Regall Tyrannie discovered there is an 
elaborate attempt to demonstrate the essential 
accord of the Mosaic law and the law of reason, 
the author attempting to prove that each of the 
Ten Commandments is reasonable and natural. ^^ 
Lilburne in Londons Liberty In Chains defined the 
law of England as 

the Perfection of Reason, consisting of Lawfull and Reason- 
able Customes, received and approved of by the people: 
and of the old Constitutions, and modern Acts of Parlia- 
ment, made by the Estates of the Kingdome. But such 
only as are agreeable to the Law Eternall and Naturall, and 
not contrary to the word of God: For whatsoever lawes, 
usages, and customes, not thus qualified; are not the law 
of the land; nor are to be observed and obeyed by the 
people, being contrary to their Birth-rights and Freedomes, 
which by the Law of God, and the great Charter of Privi- 
ledges, they ought not to be.^* 

The law of England is not law unless it is in accord 
with certain axioms of right and justice, self-evident 
to any rational man however mean his intellect. 
These axioms, comprising the law of reason, are 
higher even than the law of God, the Mosaic law, 
because that law of God is itself tried and approved 
by the law of reason. 

Who in the last resort is judge of the consonance 
of a statute or an act of government with the law 
of reason? Here is a question that differentiates 
still further the radical and the parliamentary 

"O/*. «■/., pp. 9fif. 

'* Londons Liberty In Chains, p. 41. 



RADICAL ATTACK ON ARBITRARY POWER 139 

writers. In 1646 a moderate Independent like 
John Cook, who in his Vindication Of The Professors 
& Profession Of The Law insisted that the law must 
be in accord with reason, still clung to the idea 
that the High Court of Parliament and not the 
people was final interpreter of reason. ^^ Parker of 
course had been horrified at the idea of the "molim- 
inous" mass of the people presuming to pass on the 
legality of Parliament's actions. Writers like Hun- 
ton who wrote of the three co-ordinate estates, only 
grudgingly allowed the people to decide by the 
sword when king and House disagreed." But to 
Lilbume's friends it appeared self-evident that the 
right of judging finally in an orderly way as to the 
application of the law of reason belonged to the 
people. 

A quotation from Lilburne, the tediousness of 
which must be excused by the fact that the author 
undertook to pack a whole philosophy into a single 
sentence, will reveal still other departures from the 
orthodox parliamentary position. ^^ 

God, the absolute Soveraign Lord and King, of all things 
in heaven and earth, the originall fountain, and cause of all 
causes, who is circumscribed, governed, and limited by no 
rules, but doth all things meerly and onely by his soveraign 
will, and unlimited good pleasure, who made the world, and 
all things therein, for his own glory, and who by his own 
will and pleasure, gave man (his meer creature) the sover- 

^ In every kingdom, he says, there must be a supreme tribunal to 
decide finally without appeal what the law is. The Vindication Of The 
Professors &* Profession Of The Law, pp. 18, 87. Feb. 6, 1645/6, E. 320 
(17). 

^ Supra, pp. 34 ff. 

'^ The Free-mans Freedome Vindicated, pp. 11, 12. 



140 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

aignty (under himself e) over all the rest of his Creatures, 
Gen. I, 26. 28. 29. and indued him with a rationall soule, 
or understanding, and thereby created him after his own 
image, Gen. I, 26, 27 and 9. 6. the first of which was Adam, 
a male, or man, made out of the dust or clay, out of whose 
side was taken a Rib, which by the soveraign and absolute 
mighty creating power of God, was made a female, or Woman 
cal'd Eve, which two are the earthly, originall fountain, as 
begetters and bringers forth of all and every particular and 
individuall man and woman, that ever breathed in the world 
since, who are, and were by nature all equall and alike in 
power, dignity, authority, and majesty, none of them having 
(by nature) any authority dominion or magisteriall power, 
one over or above another, neither have they, or can they 
exercise any, but meerely by institution, or donation, that 
is to say, by mutuall agreement or consent, given, derived, 
or assumed, by mutuall consent and agreement, for the good 
benefit and comfort each of other, and not for the mischiefe, 
hurt, or damage of any, it being unnaturall, irrationall, sin- 
full, wicked, and unjust, for any man, or men whatsoever, 
to part with so much of their power as shall enable any of 
their Parliament men. Commissioners, Trustees, deputies. 
Viceroys, ministers. Officers or servants, to destroy and undoe 
them therewith; And unnaturall, irrationall, sinfull, wicked, 
unjust, divehsh, and tyranicall it is, for any man whatso- 
ever, spirituall or temporall, Cleargy-man or Lay-man, to 
appropriate and assume unto himselfe, a power, authority 
and jurisdiction, to rule, govern, or raign over any sort of 
men in the world, without their free consent, and whoso- 
ever doth it, whether Cleargy-man, or any other whatsoever, 
doe thereby as much as in them lyes, endeavour to appro- 
priate & assume unto themselves the Office and soveraignty 
of God, (who alone doth, and is to rule by his will and 
pleasure) and to be like their Creator, which was the sinne 
of the Devils, who not being content with their first station, 
but would be like God, for which sin they were thrown down 
into hell, reserved in everlasting chaines, under darknes, 
unto the judgement of the great day lude ver. 6. And 
Adams sin it was, which brought the curse upon him and 
all his posterity, that he was not content with the station 
and condition that God created him in, but did aspire unto 
a better, and more excellent, (namely to be like his Creator) 



RADICAL ATTACK ON ARBITRARY POWER 141 

which proved his ruin, yea, and indeed had been the ever- 
lasting ruin and destruction of him and all his, had not God 
been the more mercifull unto him in the promised Messiah. 
Gen Chap 3. 

Here again the fundamental ideas — freedom of 
man from natural subjection, origin of government 
in compact, inalienable right — are all to be traced 
to Rutherford. But they are figures of logic to 
the writer of 1644, and vital facts to the writers of 
1646. The form in which Lilburne states them is 
significant. His emphasis of the doctrine that God 
alone can be sovereign and rule absolutely of right, 
reminds us of the Independent belief that Christ 
alone as lawgiver for his church might impose 
rules on the consciences of men. Lilburne is simply 
transferring an ecclesiastical dogma to politics. 

Furthermore, Lilburne's political philosophy is 
framed for a practical purpose quite different from 
Rutherford's. The purpose of Lilburne's reason- 
ing is the protection of the rights of the individual 
rather than the rights of the nation. Richard 
Overton is even more emphatic than Lilburne as 
to the rights of the individual. "To every Indi- 
viduall," says Overton, "in nature, is given an 
individuall property by nature, not to be invaded 
or usurped by any: for every one as he is himselfe, 
so he hath a selfe propriety, else could he not be 
himselfe, and on this no second may presume to 
deprive any of, without manifest violation and 
affront to the very principles of nature, and of the 
Rules of equity and justice between man and man; 
mine and thine cannot be, except this be; no man 



142 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

hath power over my rights and liberties, and I 
over no mans; I may be but an Individuall, enjoy 
my selfe, and my selfe propriety, and may write 

my selfe no more then my selfe "" 

This conception of the worth and importance of 
the individual influences the Leveller doctrine of 
compact. The Levellers indeed are the first of the 
thinkers of the Puritan Revolution who state clearly 
the theory of the social compact. Earlier defini- 
tions of compact were framed to demonstrate the 
sovereignty of a nation that had made a grudging 
dole of power to a monarchy it had created. The 
former authors who used this concept made of 
man's entrance into civil society a logical common- 
place, fit only to introduce in a sentence or two the 
compact between people and king. It is left for 
the Levellers to use the doctrine of compact to 
emphasize the fact that the individual has certain 
rights pertaining to him as a man. This principle 
leads them to conclude that at the time when indi- 
vidual persons coalesced into a sovereign body 
politic, each person reserved certain rights which 
Nature and Nature's God taught him were inalien- 
able — so vital to his safety that if he surrendered 
them he violated the instinct of self-preservation 
and committed murder on his own body. In 1647 
a Presbyterian author undertakes to define the 
difi^erence between the two theories of compact. 
The defenders of the Parliament against the king 
understood the law of nature to refer to the right 
enjoyed by heads of families in a patriarchal society 

" An Arrow Against All Tyrants, Oct. 10, 1646, E. 356 (14), p. 3. 



RADICAL ATTACK ON ARBITRARY POWER 143 

of establishing government over themselves and 
their households; but the postulate of the radical 
doctrine is far different, namely the breaking up 
of patriarchal authority and the setting up of every 
individual as a member of the sovereign people. ^^ 
Here also Independent influence appears. The 
Independent insisted that while subjection to civil 
government was natural to man, subjection to 
church government could lawfully arise only by 
the church covenant whereby the individual for 
certain purposes subjected himself to the govern- 
ment of church officers. The radicals now apply 
the doctrine to politics. The following definition 
of covenant from Regall Tyrannie discovered empha- 
sizes the individual's free entrance into societ^^ by 
the way of the covenant, and his retention of cer- 
tain natural rights as a result. 

So in the same case among the Sons of Men, that live in 
mutuall society one amongst another in nature and reason, 
there is none above, or over another, against mutuall con- 
sent and agreement, and all the particulars or individuals 
knit and joyned together by mutuall consent and agree- 
ment, becomes a Soveraign Lord and King, and may create 
or set apart, for the execution of their Lawes (flowing from 
their will and mind founded upon the Law of God, ingraven 
in nature, and demonstrated by reason) Officers, which we 
call Magistrates, and limit them by what rules they judge 
convenient; alwayes provided, they be consonant to the Law 
of God, Nature, and Reason; by the force of which, it is not 
lawfull for any man to subject himself, to be a slave.^* 

28 The Case Of The Army Soberly Discussed, July 3, 1647, E. 396 (10), 
p. 6. 

'^'^ Regall Tyrannie discovered, Jan. 6, 1646/7, E. 370 (12), p. 11. A 
sa5dng of Lilburne shows how the law of nature was developing out of 
the Law of God. God, said Lilburne, had engraved on the mind of man 



144 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

The radicals made important practical applica- 
tions of these theories. Their doctrine of reserved 
and inalienable rights suggested an argument for 
liberty of conscience ; for certainly the people in 
themselves had no power of coercion in religion to 
bestow on the Parliament. It was against nature 
for one man to give another the right of forcing 
him to worship God in any other way than that 
which his conscience bade him. Similarly, the 
radicals argued against the judicial power of the 
House of Lords. The people had never delegated 
to the House of Lords the power to judge them; 
therefore the House could have no inherent power 
of judging commoners. 

If all just government originated in compact and 
agreement, how could the compact be enforced 
against the ruler? This question did not perplex 
the author of Regall Tyrannie. A contract broken 
by one of the contracting parties dissolved of itself. 
The whole course of Scripture was full of compacts 
between God and man that might serve as prece- 
dents. God had contracted with Adam; and when 
Adam broke the agreement, God inflicted the pen- 
alty; God had covenanted with the children of 
Israel; when they forsook his covenant he exacted 
the forfeiture. 

The author brought his illustrations nearer home. 

the golden rule; when with Cain men forgot that rule and became tyran- 
nical and beastly, God had ordained "a perpetuall morall, unchangeable 
and everlasting Law" that whosoever violated the golden rule by op- 
pressing or slaying his neighbor should himself die. Christ had enunci- 
ated the golden rule anew, thereby not destroying public order, but rather 
restoring it to its first perfection. Londons Liberty In Chains, p. 15. 



RADICAL ATTACK ON ARBITRARY POWER 145 

The Norman kings had originally come in by con- 
quest; but in 1087 William had been moved to have 
regard to his oath that he would maintain the laws 
of the Confessor. Stephen and John had come in 
by election. The royal power of Matilda had been 
broken because she would not maintain the Con- 
fessor's law. As for Magna Charta, "Whosoever 
readeth it (which every man may at large, at the 
beginning of the book of Statutes) shall find it an 
absolute Contract betwixt the Kings of England, 
and the People thereof, which at their Coronations 
ever since, they take an Oath inviolable to ob- 
serve."^" In the past, kings of England had ruled 
by compacts with their people, had broken their 
compacts, and had ceased to rule! 

By the rules of abstract justice implied in these 
general propositions, the radicals had next to weigh 
the existing government of England, legally and 
nominally vested not only in the House of Com- 
mons, but also In the House of Lords and the king; 
actually vested in the peers as well as the repre- 
sentatives of the people. So weighed, it must have 
been found wanting. The author of Regall Tyran- 
nie might. It Is true, have disposed of the king's 
pretensions in the orthodox fashion. The king, he 
might have said, while ruling justly, was king by 
contract ; for the rest, Regall Tyrannie went beyond 
previous books In its insistence that the king's 
violation of his contract was the end of his power 
and the beginning of his deposition. But similar 
reasoning could not have established on a basis of 

" Op. cit., pp. 10-26, passim. 



146 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

equity the legislative power exercised by the Lords ; 
clearly they had obtained it by grant of the king — 
and how could the king under contract principles 
have given them legislative power? Moreover, the 
author of Regall Tyrannie would have had to ac- 
count for many things in the law courts and the 
common law that were tyrannical, and hence could 
not have originated in popular assent. All these 
puzzling problems found their answer in what we 
may call the "conquest theory" — that Englishmen 
in their government still wore the shameful badges 
of the Norman conquest. 

In a sense, the "conquest theory" is the key to 
the attitude of the radicals toward the Great Civil 
War. The war was not to them the prosily and 
pedantically legal thing that the declarations of 
Parliament had depicted it to be. It was a crusade 
of Englishmen for the recovery of liberties which 
their fathers had held and lost. This spirit, as we 
have seen, was partly expressed by John Goodwin 
in Anti-Cavalierisme; but past all question it was 
still more prominent in the minds of men like 
Lilburne. In the year 1646 this sentiment found 
its best expression in A Remonstrance Of Many 
Thousand Citizens . . . To their owne House of 
Commons.^^ 

The Remonstrance interpreted English history 
since the Norman conquest to prove that the nation 
had been held in bondage by the delinquencies of 

« July 7, 1646, E. 343 (11). The Ivst Man In Bonds, June 29, 1646, 
E. 342 (2), p. 1, says of the Lords: "Sons of conquest they are and 
usurpation, not of choice and election, intruded upon us by power, not 
constituted by consent, not made by the people, from whom all power, 
place and office that is just in this kingdome ought only to arise." 



RADICAL ATTACK ON ARBITRARY POWER 147 

kings and other "Officers of Trust" in the common- 
wealth. At first this bondage had been maintained 
by force, but latterly by infusing in the people 
false principles of kingship, parliaments, and free- 
dom; also by the corruption of the gentry, natu- 
rally the strongest prop of the people. The nation 
had borne with its bondage far longer than it 
should have done. 

But in conclusion, longer they would not beare, and then 
ye [the House of Commons] were chosen to worke our deliver- 
ance, and to estate us in naturall and just libertie agreable 
to Reason and common Equitie, for whatever our fore- 
Fathers were; or what ever they did or suffered, or were 
enforced to yeeld unto; Wee are the men of the present Age, 
and ought to be absolutely Free from all kindes of Exorbi- 
tancies. Molestations or Arbitrary Power, and you Wee 
choose to free us . . . and Wee were full of Confi- 
dence, that yee also would have dealt impartially on our 
behalf, and made Us the most absolute People in the World.'^ 

If it were admitted that the arbitrary power 
and injustice then existing was a yoke imposed by 
the Norman conquest and the usurpation of the 
king and his creatures the Lords, the question was 
how to release the commonwealth from its bond- 
age. This was the cause to which Lilbume con- 
sidered himself a martyr. ^^ Overton had some idea 
of the real difficulty of what must necessarily come 

^^Remonstrance, pp. 4-5. 

'^ He adds to the "proposition" on p. 144 the conclusion that next to 
revealing to men the knowledge of Christ, the best work a man can do 
is to "discover the privilege, that is, the Right, Due, and Propriety of all 
the Sons of Adam, as men: that so they may not live in beastlinesse, by 
devouring one another." It is also, says Lilburne, a man's duty to 
maintain such privileges against tyrants; and it was to this end that he 
engaged in battle with the Lords. 



148 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

first — the awakening of the people to a sense of the 
oppressions they suffered and of their right to free- 
dom ; for, of course, in the Remonstrance the people 
of England spoke only figuratively to the Commons 
through the mouths of a few advanced thinkers. 
Overton in his Defiance Against All Arbitrary Usur- 
pations bewailed the fact that usurpations had 
continued so long that the people were ignorant 
of their rights, and persecuted men who strove to 
establish them. 

So that he whosoever he is, or shall be their Informer, 
must not look to conquer all where he may at first seem to 
prevail, yet that may not excuse his endeavours, which are 
the discharge of his duty; seeing the blessing comes in the 
use of the means, and it is impossible, that so great stupiditie 
should be either removed from this generation, or prevented 
in the next, except there be diligent, faithfull, continued, 
and powerfuU endeavours used.^* 

In the spring and summer of 1646, two things 
appeared essential to the freeing of the people. 
First, the people must stick close to the House of 
Commons. Second, the House of Commons must 
itself recognize the duty intrusted to it by the 
people. The first essential had been emphasized 
by the radicals in the contest over the City Remon- 
strance.^^ The second is the theme of the Remon- 
strance Of Many Thousand Citizens. 

This book is worth a very careful analysis. A 
seventeenth-century House of Commons could treat 
it only as a libel of the deepest dye. Yet through 

** A Defiance Against All Arbitrary Usurpations, Sept. 9, E. 353 (17), 
pp. 2, 3. 

» Supra, pp. 122-124. 



RADICAL ATTACK ON ARBITRARY POWER 149 

all its violence of expression there runs an ideal of 
democracy that perhaps only the twentieth cen- 
tury can parallel. As a previous quotation would 
indicate, the Remonstrance professes the extreme 
democracy which teaches that the people need not 
on all occasions act through a duly constituted 
government. "For," runs another passage, '" the 
effecting whereof [freedom from the yoke of con- 
quest] we possessed you with the same Power that 
was in our selves, to have done the same : For Wee 
might justly have done it our selves without you, 
if Wee had thought it convenient."*" In the year 
of grace 191 6 this seems modem enough; but doc- 
trine still more modern is to come. 

Needless to say, the Remonstrance complains that 
the House of Commons has not done the bidding 
of its masters. Instead of quelling the king as a 
Norman tyrant it has used the doctrine of minis- 
terial responsibility to cloak his misdeeds, "begging 
and intreating him in such submissive language 
. . . as if you were resolved to make us beleeve 
hee were a God"." 

The House of Commons must completely re- 
verse its policy. It must discard the forms under 
which it addressed the king with reverence and 
respect, and arouse the people to see the fruits of 
kingly tyranny only too apparent in the nation. It 
must declare its intention to have done forever with 
such tyranny; and in earnest of its intention must 
appropriate the king's revenue for the nation. The 

'' Remonstrance, p. 3. 
"Ibid., p. 5. 



150 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

peers, surrendering their privileges and immunities, 
their pretended power of imprisoning commoners, 
and their "negative voices." must follow after the 
king. The Commons, being chosen by the people 
of the nation, have in themselves alone the power 
of making laws, of altering and of abolishing them; 
and they must no longer admit the form of the 
assent of king and Lords to legislation. 

All this done, the House of Commons must still 
reform itself before it can free the people. In the 
first place, since its members were chosen accord- 
ing to the old law of England to sit in Parliament 
for but a year at most, they should not have con- 
tinued their sitting so far beyond the period implied 
in their election. A system must be devised by 
which year after year a new Parliament or House 
of Commons may be elected in place of that of the 
preceding year; and for the future, the attempt of 
a local magnate to carry an election by influence 
must be made a serious offense. When it has 
accomplished this, the House of Commons of the 
Long Parliament may give place to a representa- 
tive body fit to enjoy the whole government in 
practice as well as in right. 

Meanwhile, the Commons will find many things 
in their own practice that call for reform. They 
must give up their highhandedness in ruling peti- 
tions to be breaches of privilege; they must sur- 
render their immunities and become subject to the 
law of the land; they must lay aside their Star- 
Chamber methods of imprisonment and of ex officio 
examinations; they must abandon their designs of 



RADICAL ATTACK ON ARBITRARY POWER 151 

compelling universal assent to a religious form. 
How can they have the right of imposing such a 
form unless each individual in the nation has trans- 
ferred to them the power to force his conscience? 
Also there are many things outside their own prac- 
tice that claim their immediate attention: the "ex- 
orbitances" in London's government; the monopo- 
lies of the great trading companies ; the unworthi- 
ness of the laws to serve a free people ; the profession 
of hired lawyers ; imprisonment for debt ; the wretch- 
edness of the poor. 

Above all the House of Commons must forget its 
doubts and fears, and assume an attitude toward 
its difficulties that will inspire the people to de- 
cisive action. In the past, to give a single in- 
stance, it had been faint-hearted in summoning 
in the Scots instead of arming its own friends; 
its faint-heartedness in that instance had involved 
it in an attempt to enforce Presbyterianism on 
men's consciences. If it had once shown a determi- 
nation to make the people a free people, it might 
have finished the war long since ; as it is, the struggle 
will drag on so long as Parliament lets the people 
think that success means only exchanging bondage 
to an irresponsible king for bondage to an irrespon- 
sible clique of Lords and Commons. 

Forsake, and utterly renounce all craftie and sub till inten- 
tions; hide not your thoughts from Us, and give us encour- 
agement to be open breasted unto you: Proclaime afore- 
hand, what yee determine to doe, in establishing any thing 
for continuance; and heare aU things that can be spoken 
with or against the same; and to that intent, set the impris- 
oned Presses at liberty, that all mens understandings may 



152 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

be more conveniently informed, and convinced, as farre as 
is possible by the equity of your Proceedings. 

Wee cannot but expect to be delivered from the Norman 
bondage, whereof wee now as well as our Predecessours, 
have felt the smart by these bloody warres; and from all 
unreasonable Lawes made ever since that unhappy conquest; 
as wee have encouragement, wee shall informe you further, 
and guide you, as we observe your doings. 

The Worke yee must note is ours, and not your owne, 
though ye are to be partakers with us in the well or ill doing 
thereof.^^ 

The spirit of the men who could write such a mani- 
festo as this has hardly been assigned sufficient 
importance in the history of the Great Civil War. 
It is impossible to regard the men capable of con- 
ceiving of such democracy as mere fanatics; difficult 
to dismiss them as unprincipled self-seekers. Their 
ideas may with more truth be judged impracticable 
and useless for seventeenth-century England; yet 
Overton, at least, partly understood that such 
democracy could find its fruition only after an educa- 
tion of the people continued for generation after gen- 
eration. It was useless to expect the seventeenth- 
century House of Commons to adopt the policy of 
the Remonstrance. The men who framed it were 
soon compelled to abandon the dream of a House of 

^8 Remonstrance, p. 19. It may be interesting to compare this passage 
with Gardiner's estimate of the weakness of the Parliament's position in 
1642: "The remedy for the evil lay not in the substitution of an irre- 
sponsible King for an irresponsible Parhament, but partly in the estab- 
lishment of that responsible ministry which Pym had sketched out; 
partly, too, in securing that responsibility of Parliament to the nation, 
through perfect freedom of speech and writings . . . ." History 
of England, X, 216. By Gardiner's criterion the constitutional theories 
and ideas of the Levellers deserve a more important place in constitu- 
tional histories of the war than has ordinarily been accorded them. 



RADICAL ATTACK ON ARBITRARY POWER 153 

Commons absolute because in accord with the na- 
tional will. They were forced to seek other expe- 
dients to preserve the natural rights of the people. 
The Remonstrance represented but a step in the 
evolution of Leveller ideas; but, even so, two and 
a half centuries of democratic thinking have hardly 
brought us a finer ideal of the relation of govern- 
ment and people.** 

The radicals based their democratic ideals on their 
faith in the dignity and worth of the individual. 
Appreciating the value of the individual man, they 
thought it inconceivable that he could be by right 
subject to any power arbitrary enough to enslave 
him ; and to emphasize his dignity they pictured him 
as voluntarily placing himself under a government 
so limited that it might not harm him. On per- 
ceiving that this theory did not correspond to the 
facts, they summoned people and House of Commons 
to confide in each other and to cooperate as princi- 
pal and agent in making all powers in England 
derive their authority from the assent of a nation 
composed of individuals — every man made in the 
image of God. 

NOTES 

I. The Lords' Jurisdiction over Commoners 

Two years before Lilburne's collision with the Lords, two similar 
cases had arisen involving principles much like those in Lilburne's case. 

Colonel King had been fined by the Lords in May of 1644, for alleged 
arbitrariness in his dealings with Lord Willoughby in Lincolnshire. 

'' Any attempt to determine the authorship of the Remottstrance must 
be a mere guess. The style, expression, and ideas suggest Overton's or 
possibly Marten's work; hardly Lilburne's or Walwyn's. 



154 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

Prynne as King's attorney had made answer that the affair in question 
was then undergoing examination in the House of Commons; the House 
of Commons had decided that the Lords' action was a breach of the 
Commons' privileges, had called for a conference with the Lords on the 
subject, and finally ordered that King be discharged from imprisonment 
without payment of any fees; for he had given offense when the Lords 
called him in to hear his sentence read, and had been committed to the 
Fleet. Lords Journal, May 16, 30, June 3, 18, 1644, VI, 555, 573, 575, 
595; Commons Journal, June 19, July 3, HI, 534, 550. 

In the same year the Lords had fined one. Captain Rous, one hundred 
pounds and had sought to make him kneel at their bar and confess the 
justice of the sentence. As a commoner he had thrown himself on the 
House of Commons, and had been committed to the Fleet; July 5, the 
House of Commons, on the ground that he was in attendance on the 
House as a witness, had ordered his discharge without fees. Lords Jour- 
nal, June 1, June 18, 1644, VI, 574, 596; Commons Journal, July 5, 
III, 551. 

The case of Clement Walker, who was fined by the House of Lords in 
1643 for alleged reflections on Lord Saye, in connection with the prose- 
cution of Nathaniel Fiennes, Saye's son, for cowardice in connection 
with the loss of Bristol is another case in point; but apparently the 
House of Commons took no action in his case. 

II. LiLBTTRNE AND HiS JAILERS 

Soon after his imprisonment in 1646, Lilburne was embroiled in dis- 
putes with his keepers over the heavy prison fees of the Tower, and over 
certain formalities that he considered designed to intimidate the friends 
who came to see him. His especial hete noir was John White. White 
was described somewhat leniently by the author of Vox Plehis, Nov. 19, 
1646, E. 362 (20) — a man with far too keen a sense of humor to be Lil- 
burne— as an old man who would be a good one, if only he would give over 
scribbling foolish books against the dissenting brethren and against men 
in affliction; but withal too slow to credit the extortions with which his 
under- jailers were justly charged . White had ha d a former passage of arms 
with Lilburne when the colonel was prisoner in Newgate. White, 
according to his own account, had visited Lilburne there out of charity, 
and had offered him some good advice (apparently on things in general) ; 
he felt much aggrieved that Lilburne had only threatened to throw him 
out for his pains. Considering what the probable tone of the advice 
was, the story is not unlikely. lohn White's Defence, Sept. 15, 1646, E. 
354 (4). 



RADICAL ATTACK ON ARBITRARY POWER 155 

The author of Vox Plebis may possibly have been Harry Marten. It 
is written with a keen sense of humor; the descriptions of conditions in 
the Tower (where Marten had recently been imprisoned) suggest a first- 
hand acquaintance with the subject. The author quotes Reynard the 
Fox, a thing hardly apt to have fallen in the scope of the ordinary Level- 
ler's reading. The temptation to ascribe anything showing an objective 
sense of humor to Marten is great. Vox Plebis, p. 53. 

Ill, A Lawyer's Summary of the Defects of SEVENTEENXH-CENTtrRY 
English Law 

A comparatively impartial statement by a professed lawyer as to 
what the defects and injustices in English legal procedure really were may 
appropriately follow the Leveller demands. John Cook's The Vindication 
Of The Professors &■ Profession Of The Laiv, Feh. 6, 1645/6, E. 320 (17), is 
itself a protest against the tendency of some men of the time to regard all 
lawyers as rascals, but the book is moderately radical in its viewpoint. 
Cook would gladly have seen the whole law of England brought into 
accord with the Mosaic law — the law of God. His recommendations 
are various; for one thing, the raising of the limit of a suit in forma pau- 
peris, since it is a grievous matter that a poor man cannot sue for twenty 
shillings without its costing him forty in fees. He objects to the abuse 
of technical flaws in indictments, wishes the aboHtion of imprisonment 
for debt, and of the abuses connected with the action for debt — an action 
used by pettifoggers as a convenient device for casting a man into prison. 
A man could be, and often was, imprisoned by one of these actions when 
the bringer of the action had no proof at all of any debt owed by the 
defendant. Cook wishes law proceedings to be in English; for he is 
ashamed to think that a country man should be served with a subpoena 
in Latin, when very likely he can find no one in five miles able to trans- 
late it to him — a badge of the Norman conquest this. Cook urges Par- 
liament to provide courts for the more remote counties of the kingdom; 
he suggests that to prevent men from fraudulently incurring debts they 
can never hope to pay, the Parliament should establish in every county 
an office for the registry of deeds, leases, contracts, etc., so that for a 
small fee every man may know how land is encumbered; thus men 
will no longer be enabled to live beyond their estates, or to hold rich 
mortgages and feign poverty. 

Further, he recommends that, to bring about the desirable accord 
between the law of England and the laws of God and reason, some grave, 
judicious man well versed in Scripture and in the common law should 
consider what changes would serve to bring the one into harmony with 
the other. 



CHAPTER V 

1647. The Birth of the Leveller Party 

I. the radicals quarrel with the house of 

COMMONS 

npHE events of the spring and summer of 1647 
-*• molded the radical Independents into a 
political party. As early as April, the united sup- 
port the radicals gave to a series of petitions to 
Parliament indicated their ability to work in con- 
cert. In August they formally severed connection 
with the Independent party, and became a politi- 
cal party with an entity and platform of its own. 
Its enemies soon bestowed on it the party name 
"Leveller." 

The Leveller party was bom amid political chaos. 
In June the New Model Army assumed an active 
part in politics; and for three months the Independ- 
ents of the army and city were in close alliance 
with both Lilbume's friends and the king's against 
the Presbyterians. By the end of the summer this 
unnatural coalition had divided into three warring 
parties — Independents, Royalists, and Levellers. 
Meanwhile the Levellers, as a result of the recep- 
tion accorded their petitions, had pronounced the 
House of Commons' power forfeited for misuse, and 
the chiefs of the New Model had invented ingenious 
excuses for professing obedience to a Parliament 
that they had coerced with the sword. Yet in the 

156 



BIRTH OF THE LEVELLER PARTY 157 

midst of the confusion, Presbyterian, Independent, 
Royalist, and Leveller strove each according to his 
principles to bring about an orderly settlement of 
the kingdom ; to escape from the confessedly extra- 
legal situation to one better warranted by recorded 
law or principles of reason. 

The breaking of the old-time political alliances 
began when the radicals quarreled with the House 
of Commons. A disinterested observer might have 
predicted much earlier that the radicals would do 
so. The House hesitated to act decisively even on 
a point so plausible as Lilbume's denial of the Lords' 
jurisdiction over him, and let Lilburne languish in 
prison month after month, only taking notice of 
him when his writings became so outspoken as to 
provoke the censure of its committees.* As a result 
of the shifting of parties, the House in 1647 was even 
more hostile to radical ideas than it had been in 
1646. Then it had been Independent in complexion 
only from distrust of the Scottish army and of the 
Presbyterianism advocated by the Assembly Once 
the one and the other had been disposed of, the bal- 
ance of parties shifted, and the Presbyterian leaders. 
Holies and Stapleton, found no difficulty in muster- 
ing majorities for their measures. If the radicals 
had ever really believed that the House of Commons 
would assume the duties they had prescribed for it, 
its attitude of 1647 was sufficient to disillusion all 
save those who wilfully shut their eyes to condi- 
tions actually existing. 

' In The resolved mans Resolution, Lilburne gives an account of such an 
inquiry into his writings. 



158 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

By the spring of 1647 the radicals had resolved to 
force the House of Commons to choose between 
their program and their hostility. Perhaps under 
the guidance of William Walwyn,^ they began the 
promotion of a petition that in its intended effect 
was a party manifesto designed to educate public 
opinion.^ The petition disregarded the existence of 
the old constitutional forms by addressing the 
House of Commons as the supreme authority of the 
kingdom. It set off enthusiastic encomiums on the 
excellence of parliaments with denunciations of 
attempts to curb their activity. Because the Com- 
mons had tolerated such attempts, the petition 
continued, they had lost an opportunity of freeing 
the nation such as no previous Parliament had en- 
joyed; and the people, whose loyal assistance had 
given the Commons their opportunity, remained in 
bondage. The claims of the House of Lords to 
criminal jurisdiction over the commoners enslaved 
the nation. The monopolies of the Merchant Ad- 
venturers, imprisonment for debt, unjust and extor- 
tionate prison fees remained ; men and women lived 
and brought up their children in beggary. Intol- 
erance in religion still walked abroad to bar men 
because of their beliefs from serving Parliament. 

The petition named the remedies that must be 
applied. The House of Commons must free itself 
from the "Negative Voice" of king and Lords, that 
unhindered it might complete the liberation of those 

2 Infra, Ch. VII, p. 252. 

* Gold tried in the fire, Or The bttrnt Petitions revived, June 14, 1647, E. 
392 (19) . The petition is printed in full in E. 464 (19), Sept. 19, 1648. 



BIRTH OF THE LEVELLER PARTY 159 

whom it represented. It must revoke the fines 
imposed without due process of law on commoners, 
forbid examinations ex officio, and repeal all enact- 
ments forcing men against their consciences to take 
oaths, protestations, or covenants. It must not 
permit fallible magistrates to punish religious 
opinions;^ and so on for the other heads of the 
preamble. In short, the petition stated in official 
form the Leveller program so far as it had been 
developed. 

The Levellers were not suffered to proceed with 
their petition in peace. March 15, while the work 
of getting signatures was still going on, a copy of 
the petition was brought into the House of Com- 
mons. The copy had been read at the Spittle on 
Sunday the 14th, after a young man had endeavored 
to "prove free will"! It had been signed by six 
people at the meeting and about a hundred names 
were on it already!* Two days later the corpora- 
tion of London petitioned the House of Lords for 
the suppression of the Leveller petition.^ 

In self-justification, the supporters of the petition 
presented to the committee having the matter in 

*"5. That no Man, for preaching or publishing his Opinion in Reli- 
gion in a peaceable Way, be punished or prosecuted as Heretical, by Judges 
that are not infallible, but may be mistaken as well as other Men in their 
Judgemente ; lest, upon Pretence of suppressing Errors, Sects, and Schisms, 
the most necessary Truths and sincere professors thereof may be sup- 
pressed, as upon the like Pretences it hath been in all Ages." 

^Commons Journal, V, 112. 

® According to the account of the petitioners, a copy of the petition 
was carried to Recorder Glynn, who turned it over to a committee for the 
suppression of unlicensed preaching. Gold tried in the fire; Lords Jour- 
nal, IX, 83-85. 



160 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

hand a certificate avowing the petition and asserting 
that it was not a libel, but a bona fide petition 
intended for presentation to the Parliament. Nich- 
olas Tew (or Tue) read this certificate to the crowd 
waiting in the Court of Requests to avow the peti- 
tion. He did this in order that some who had not 
previously heard the certificate might assent to it; 
nevertheless the committee sent for him, and on his 
refusal to answer questions, committed him. The 
House of Commons concurred in the committee's 
action on the 19th, voting at the same time that 
Major Tulidah be taken into custody as a delin- 
quent.^ According to Leveller accounts Tulidah 
had been falsely accused of disorderly conduct be- 
fore the committee by Holies, Stapleton, and Earle, 
who had handled him roughly and had offered to 
draw swords on the petitioners. 

Undaunted by the ill fortune of their certificate, 
the petitioners prepared a second petition. In it 
they demanded the release of their friends, the 
silencing of the busybodies who had misrepresented 
the first petition in Parliament, and lastly freedom 
for themselves to promote that petition; for the 
plea of military necessity that had cloaked Parlia- 
ment's summary actions in former years could 
hardly be pleaded in time of peace. But the 
House vouchsafed no answer to this second petition 
for nearly six weeks, and then answered "The 
House doth dislike this Petition ;" later it committed 

"> Commons Journal, V, 118; Gold tried in the fire, p. 9. The Journal 
spells the name Tyllydah. 



BIRTH OF THE LEVELLER PARTY 161 

one, Browne, because of too great importunity, for 
an answer.^ 

While the House was apparently brooding over 
this oracular saying, the petitioners were busy with 
a petition still more outspoken. It argued that the 
people had commissioned the House of Commons 
to redress their grievances, and therefore enjoyed 
the right of presenting their grievances by petition. 
As for the reception the previous petitions had 
met, the House should consider the ill effects that 
would follow if the common council were allowed 
to prejudge petitions, and if the House committees 
were permitted to imprison without orders from the 
House. Accordingly, the petition continued, the 
House should hear the testimony against Holies, 
Stapleton, and Earle, free Tew (Tulidah had been 
bailed), and not judge of the "large petition" until 
the petitioners should present it. Perhaps in bra- 
vado the radicals gave this petition to Holies for 
presentation. The House voted it a high breach 
of privilege, and decreed that both it and the large 
petition should be burned by the hangman. In 
burning them, said Overton, the House virtually 

* Gold tried in the fire, pp. 9, 6, 7. The answer was given May 4, 
Commons Journal, V, 162. Browne was committed May 20. He was 
reported to have said April 30: "That they had been waiting many 
Weeks for an Answer to their Petition; and now they see they shall have 
none, and take it for a flat Denial; therefore, now we are resolved to 
take another Way, or Course." Being asked his name he had said that 
the time might come when he would ask his questioner's name in an- 
other place. Having knelt at the bar of the House and denied his guilt, 
he was committed to Newgate. Commons Journal, V, 179. Gardiner 
seems incorrectly to ascribe these remarks to Tew in March. Great 
Civil War, III, 256. 



162 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

burned the Great Charter of England, containing 
the liberties and freedoms of Englishmen, "for in 
those petitions were contained the chiefest heads of 
that Charter. "» 

The patience of the party that had supported the 
various petitions was almost exhausted. Some 
thought the time ripe to draw up a remonstrance to 
the kingdom, arraigning the members of Parliament 
as oath-breakers. Lilbume says that he recom- 
mended a petition to the effect that Parliament — 
since the petitions previously presented were such 
high breaches of privilege — would please to state 
its privileges, how it came by them, and what the 
subject might petition for.^" Finally Lilburne's 
friends decided to attack the Presbyterian leaders 
of the House, instead of the House of Commons 
itself. One last petition described certain members 
as sowers of dissension between the Parliament and 
its supporters. ^^ The House on June 2 accorded 
permission to present the petition, but voted, 128 
to 112, to give no answer to it at the time. The 
petitioners then sent in word that they had heard of 
the vote, and discharged themselves from following 
their petition further for the present, "and will 

^Commons Journal, V, 179, 180. The quotation is from An Appeale 
From the degenerate Representative Body the Comynons . ... at 
Westminster, July 17, 1647, E. 398 (28), p. 14. 

1° Rash Oaths unwarrantable. Lilburne's account of the petitions is 
in pp. 29^5. 

" Gold tried in the fire, pp. 4, 12. The petition asked the appointment 
of a committee to inquire after persons in authority whose employment 
in places of public trust was either unsafe or contrary to parliamentary 
ordinances; further, it asked that the army's demands be granted, and 
those persons punished who sought to prejudice Parliament against it. 



BIRTH OF THE LEVELLER PARTY 163 

notwithstanding still seeke such just and equitable 
meanes for to ease the grievances of this poore dis- 
tracted Kingdome, and comfortably put an end to 
the groanings of this miserable distressed nation. "^^ 
As Gardiner remarks, it was the day on which Cor- 
net Joyce was riding to Holmby. 

The Levellers were at last convinced that the 
House of Commons would not play the role they 
had assigned to it. The House in expressing its dis- 
approbation of the radical theories had arbitrarily 
violated what we now consider essential privi- 
leges connected with the right of petition. Yet 
there was some excuse for the heat of the House's 
displeasure with the March petition. As has been 
said, it was a manifesto rather than a petition ; and 
even to tolerate passively its doctrine was to en- 
dorse a revolution whose completeness we can 
scarcely comprehend today. The Levellers had 
forced an open breach with the House of Commons 
when they proposed to present a petition embody- 
ing the doctrine of the Remonstrance Of Many 
Thousand Citizens. 

II. THE NEW MODEL IN POLITICS; THE BREAK 
BETWEEN LEVELLER AND INDEPENDENT 

By the time the radicals had given over peti- 
tioning Parliament, the New Model Army had be- 
come a political factor, and its officers and men, in 
order to promote a program of political and social 
reforms, had discarded the ordinary relations of 

^^ Commons Journal, V, 195; Rash Oaths unwarrantable, p. 47. 



164 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

military discipline. Manifestly the army that 
could do this was no ordinary army; indeed, a man 
born in this generation is probably too far removed 
from seventeenth-century England to understand 
fully the spirit of the New Model Army or of the 
men who composed it. The typical New Model 
soldier was intellectually the child of an age of 
transition. He reached after a system of political 
ideas that anticipated the nineteenth century; the 
fanatical and mystical shade of his Puritanism 
represented the extreme of the sixteenth-century 
reformation; yet withal his naiveness in applying 
his theories, and his respectful deference to the 
beliefs and judgments of his superiors in rank and 
place were an abiding intellectual heritage from an 
England still simple and catholic. In the twentieth 
century the paradoxical complex of motives that 
governed the political actions of the New Model 
soldiery may be analyzed, but scarcely experienced. 
All through 1646 the eyes of both Independents 
and Presbyterians had been turned toward the 
army either in hope or in fear. The small number of 
sectaries — one in six, Edwards repeatedly assures 
us — nevertheless disquieted him by their extreme 
fanaticism; and the men whom Edwards called 
fanatics ruled the spirit of the New Model. The 
Independents regarded it as the sheet anchor of 
their hopes. A picture with doggerel verse pub- 
lished in September of 1646 under the title oiThe 
Watchmans Warning-piece'^^ illustrates the popular 
impression among the Independents. A man has 

" The pamphlet is E. 354 (10). 



BIRTH OF THE LEVELLER PARTY 165 

carelessly laid aside his arms only to find the 
Dragon of Popery, the Leopard of Prelacy, and the 
Snake of Presbyterianism ready to attack a lamb. 
"Shewing," as the subtitle runs, "that If our Ar- 
mies lay down Arms before the Worke is at an end, 
We may expect yet worser Harms, More pretious 
lives and States to Spend." It concludes: 

But all the choycest Friends to Parliament, 
That joyn with one Unanimous Consent, 
A Blessing may expect on their Designes: 
Where wisdom guarded with an Army, shines. 

To an age that believed in the immediate inter- 
position of the hand of God in the affairs of men, it 
seemed that Providence had marked that army for 
great things, greater perhaps than any it had ac- 
complished.^* Indeed the past achievements of the 
New Model went far to justify such faith. When 
in 1645 it had taken the field there was no great 
noble among its commanders to lend luster to it; 
moreover, its leaders were men who with the excep- 
tion of Skippon had never seen service in Germany, 
and therefore in the eyes of professionals were but 

^*"lt is an Army, I confesse, that hath had little worldly pomp or humane 
glory to be seen upon it, and therefore hath been in the eye of the world; 
even from its infancy, poore, meane, inconsiderable, contemptible: But 
this hath been, and is the glory of it, that the Lord is their God, and that 
there is the shout of a King amongst them. Many of the members 
thereof, especially those in the highest places of Command, being able 
by an eye of Faith to behold him, who is the King of Saints, walking in 
the midst of them, and continually furnishing them, even by his owne 
Spirit, with wisdome, innocency, strength and courage sutable to their 
present necessities." A Just Apologie For An Abvsed Annie, Jan. 29, 
1646/7, E. 372 (22). 



166 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

amateur soldiers. ^^ It was so contemptible to its 
masked enemies among the Presbyterians, that 
Baillie pronounced that they expected nothing good 
from it; so contemptible to its avowed enemies 
among the Cavaliers, that Charles, six days before 
Naseby, could write that "my affaires were never 
in so faire and hopefull a way. "^"^ Yet the May of 
1645 had seen the storm of Leicester by the king's 
forces, and the May of 1646 had seen the king a 
prisoner and the last Royalist fortresses holding 
out only for honor. The conclusion that God had 
acknowledged the army was none too strong for 
the facts. 

For our present purpose it suffices that the army 
was generally Independent in spirit, and through 
the zeal of its unlicensed preachers a stumbling 
block to the rigid Presbyterians. In 1647, with 
their faction in power, the Scots out of the kingdom, 
and the king's forces put down, the Presbyterians 
felt that they and the nation would be well rid of 
this army and the heavy taxation its support en- 
tailed. In their impatience to attain their end 
speedily they made insufficient provision for the 
back pay of the regiments they proposed to disband. 
In March the soldiers prepared a petition for fair 
dealing on this and other matters of interest to the 
army. The House of Commons condemned the 
petition, declaring that those who undertook to 
promote it were public enemies. In alarm at these 

" So the above pamphlet, pp. 3, 4. Fairfax, it is true, had seen a 
siege or two as a boy. 

" Baillie, II, 265; The Kings Cabinet Opened, 1645, E. 292 (27), p. 14. 



BIRTH OP THE LEVELLER PARTY 167 

and other proceedings of the government, the com- 
mon soldiers in their various regiments chose "agi- 
tators" to watch over their interests. Sympathy 
with the men's demands soon led the subordinate 
officers to make common cause with them. Finally 
Cromwell and Fairfax, the general officers, did the 
same, Cromwell throwing in his lot with the soldiers 
simultaneously with the securing of the king's per- 
son on behalf of the army by Comet Joyce. 

On the 5th of June in a general rendezvous at 
Newmarket, the soldiers signed a "Solemn Engage- 
ment." They excused^^ their attitude of defiance 
by a recital of Parliament's ill usage of their petition, 
and its attempts to disband them piecemeal with- 
out satisfying their just demands. Such conduct, 
they argued, gave good ground for fear lest Parlia- 
ment, after disbanding the New Model, take ven- 
geance on those who had been forward in the 
soldiers' behalf. The engagers accordingly must 
refuse to disband or divide till terms providing for 
their safety in so doing were agreed to by a council 
consisting of the general officers and two soldiers 
and two officers from each regiment — the famous 
Council of the Army. Further, the engagers denied 
that their end was anarchy or license In religion, as 
had been alleged; but they avowed their intention 
of promoting without regard to parties "such an 
Establishment of common and equal Right and 
Freedom to the whole, as all might equally partake 
of . . . ." They assumed the right as Impartial 
arbiters to bring the Great Civil War to an end. 

" Rushworth, VI, 510-512. 



168 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

A declaration of the army of June 14 set forth the 
political program promised in the Solemn Engage- 
ment. To make it plain once for all that the army's 
actions were something more than a mere mutiny 
of mercenary troops, the declaration asserted in 
words, often quoted thereafter, the army's right to 
a share in the political settlement of the kingdom, 
"especially considering, that we were not a meer 
mercinary Army, hired to serve any Arbitrary 
Power of a State, but called forth and conjured by 
the several Declarations of Parliament, to the de- 
fence of our own and the People's just Rights and 
Liberties. " With this preface, the army proposed 
an elaborate scheme of reform which involved suc- 
cessive parliamentary elections, the restoration of 
the king on terms, and liberty of conscience. ^^ 

^* Among the specific demands are the purging the House of Commons 
of delinquent or improperly elected members, and justice against certain 
members to be named thereafter, who have been guilty of practices 
against the Parliament. In the further stipulation that in future only 
those "acted ... by a principle of Conscience and Religion in 
them" be elevated to high oflQce is foreshadowed the rule of the Saints. 

The declaration goes on to propose that the king be readmitted to 
power after the people's liberties have been vindicated. It urges the 
revoking of the arbitrary powers of county committees and deputy lieu- 
tenants as soon as they are no longer necessary. It urges an accounting 
of the moneys raised and spent in the course of the war, a general obliv- 
ion, and ease for tender consciences. 

Commissary-General Henry Ireton, the author of the declaration, in 
developing his argument, seems almost consciously to attempt to steer 
away from the doctrines of Lilburne and Overton. The House of Com- 
mons is trusted only with the people's interest in the supreme power of 
the commonwealth; and in the strictures on the inconvenience of a per- 
petual Parliament, any reflection on the act against the dissolution of 
the Parliament or on the men who had secured it is especially disclaimed ; 
whereas Lilburne had come to consider the assent to that act the most 



BIRTH OF THE LEVELLER PARTY 169 

The army, however, speedily discovered that it 
could enact its program only after it had imposed 
constraint on the civil power. June i6, the Council 
of the Army preferred charges against eleven Pres- 
byterian leaders of the House of Commons. A 
march toward London on the 26th induced the 
House to give way, and at the same time to save its 
face by "allowing" the eleven to withdraw. But 
on the 26th of July the mob of the city invaded the 
Palace of Westminster, and forced the members to 
invite the king to London, and to repeal votes they 
had made a few days earlier against a "Solemn 
Engagement" circulated in the city for signatures. 
The invitation to the king would have given him 
the opportunity of negotiating terms of peace with 
the Houses on even terms, and probably would have 
resulted in a Royalist reaction. 

The Independents took no chances. When Par- 
liament reassembled on the morning of the 30th of 
July, it found that the speakers of the two Houses 
with eight peers and fifty-seven members of the 

heinous of the breaches of trust of which the king had been guilty! 
The resolved mans Resolution, p. 22. True, the declaration pronounces for 
new writs for parliamentary elections, issuing as of course in accord with 
the provisions of the Triennial Act, and further suggests that there be a 
time fixed for the dissolution of each successive Parliament, so that the 
king may no longer dissolve Parliament at his pleasure. But when this 
has been done "we shall hereby, for our part, freely and chearfully com- 
mit our Stock or Share of Interest in this Kingdom, into this common 
Bottom of Parliaments. And though it may, for our Particulars, go ill 
with us in the Voyage, yet we shall thus hope, if Right be with us, to 
fare better." This whole theory of Parliament's proper constitutional 
position is extremely characteristic of Ireton. 
The declaration is in Rushworth, VI, 564-570. 



170 TEE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

House of Commons had fled to the army. Relieved 
of these members, Lords and Commons elected new 
speakers, recalled the eleven, and made prepara- 
tions to put the city in a state of defense. Defense 
proved impossible, and on August 6 the army 
marched into the city. The Lords who had sat 
in the absence of their speaker absented them- 
selves; but the Presbyterian majority in the Com- 
mons was still defiant. On the 9th of August, it 
voted down a resolution to the effect that all that 
had been done in the absence of the speakers was 
null and void. When next day it rejected a resolu- 
tion approving the action of the army, it forced the 
officers to a plain demonstration of their military 
strength and their resolution to use it. August 20th, 
troops occupied Hyde Park ; and the officers of the 
army who were members of the House led a party of 
soldiers to the door of the House and stationed 
them there. To this show of force the Presbyte- 
rians yielded; they suffered the votes given under 
the coercion of the London mob to be annulled. 
Thenceforth they absented themselves in such num- 
bers as to give the Independents control of the 
House. Of the eleven members, seven had already 
fled the country, and one was under arrest. ^^ 

For the moment the Independents were in control 
of the political situation. They held the king's 
person, and controlled the only effective army in 
the kingdom. Thanks to judicious use of the New 
Model, they had possession of the metropolis, and 

^'Throughout this section to this point I have followed Gardiner, 
Great Civil War, III. 



BIRTH OF THE LEVELLER PARTY 171 

maintained narrow majorities in both Houses of 
Parliament. A superficial observer might have 
concluded that they had an excellent opportunity 
of securing a permanent peace. 

Yet at the very moment of their apparent triumph, 
the army leaders must have known that the ground 
on which they stood was unstable. They might 
easily have foreseen the impossibility of reaching 
a settlement satisfactory at once to king, Independ- 
ents, and radicals. The army's alliance with the 
king was hollow and uncertain. It depended for 
its continuance on Charles's belief that the army 
leaders would yield everything and exact nothing. 
In the end, the failure of Cromwell and Ireton to 
induce Charles to accept the terms they had em- 
bodied in the Heads of the Proposals led the radicals 
of the city and the army to propose in the Agreement 
of the People a constitutional settlement that 
precluded any chance of the king's voluntary 
cooperation. 

Although this step marked the political severance 
between the two factions in the Independent party, 
a rift had appeared long before; in fact it had grown 
too wide to be bridged a fortnight after the army 
entered the city. When it began is hard to say. 
Lilburne had long cherished a violent antipathy to 
certain prominent Independents such as young Sir 
Harry Vane and Oliver St. John. Some time early 
in 1646 he had "unfolded" to Cromwell the base- 
ness of these two "unworthy covetous earth- 
worms. "2° Nor was this the only case of personal 

20 lonahs Cry out of the Whales belly, July 26, 1647, E. 400 (5), p. 3. 



172 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

jealousy. Many such would undoubtedly be re- 
vealed to us by a greater knowledge of the internal 
politics of the London Independent congregations. 
For Instance, in February of 1647 Lilburne had 
complained that members of John Goodwin's con- 
gregation had discouraged petitions from London, 
Buckinghamshire, and Hertfordshire In behalf of the 
victims of arbitrary power.^^ Walwyn tells us that 
petitions of his authorship setting forth the ill 
usage of the Independents throughout the kingdom 
had twice been blocked by Independents. Yet, he 
adds, in 1644 and 1645, the same men had cordially 
accepted his political cooperation. ^^ Apart from 
any personal hostility to Lilburne, the Independents 
had probably come to consider the Arch-Leveller's 
forceful language and novel theories embarrassing. 
However, they were sufficiently alarmed at the atti- 
tude of the Presbyterians to allow without protest 
the framing of the "large petition" of March, 1647. 
When the House of Commons had condemned It, 
they drew closer to the radicals ; thus Walwyn for a 
time came again to be on friendly terms with John 
Price and other members of the congregations.^' 

Until March of 1647 Lilburne himself was on 
terms of Intimacy with Cromwell. Cromwell had 
shown him especial confidence in detailing him for 

2* lonahs Cry, p. 5. Lilburne names Sadler as directly responsible. 

^^Walwyns Jtisi Defence, 1649, pp. 1, 2. This book is not in the 
British Museum, and I have seen it cited in no secondary work. There 
is a copy of it in the Newberry Library of Chicago. 

'^ lonahs Cry; Walwyns Just Defence. Walwyn states he was inti- 
mate with Cromwell also at this time (pp. 4-6). 



BIRTH OF THE LEVELLER PARTY 173 

service with Colonel King,^* and after Lilburne had 
left the army, had given him a letter to assist him 
in pressing his claims before the House of Commons. 
Cromwell had carried his intimacy with Lilburne 
to the point of sharing one bed with him; and he 
had given so important an officer as Colonel Rich 
a thorough rating in the presence of Lilburne and 
Lilburne's wife." 

But in spite of his personal relations with Lil- 
burne, Cromwell cannot have had any great sym- 
pathy with the doctrines that Lilburne and Overton 
had announced in the summer of 1646. March 25, 
1647, Lilburne, "jealous over him with the height 
of Godly jealousy," wrote Cromwell a letter. He 
gratefully admitted that in the past Cromwell had 
been the mainstay of the poor people of God. But 
if he continued to do as he had done lately, and 
undermined such petitions as the army's, deliver- 
ance would arise to the oppressed from another 
place "than from you silken Independents, the 
broken reeds of Egypt in the House and Army." 
Should Cromwell continue his course, Lilburne 
promised to arraign him at the bar of God for de- 
livering his friends into the tyrannical clutches of 
Holies and Stapleton "against whom we are suffi- 
ciently able to preserve our selves if it were not for 
hee O Cromwell. "26 

Cromwell sent some oral reply to the letter, but 
Lilburne pronounced it no more satisfactory than 

"^ lust Mans lustification, p. 5. 

*^ The Copy oj a letter; lonahs Cry, pp. 6 ff. 

^ Ihid., p. 2. The letter was carried by Mrs. Lilburne. 



174 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

anything else he had heard lately from Cromwell 
and his overwise friends ' ' that are not able to trust 
God three halfe pence." It was in Cromwell's 
nature to shrink from practical application in poli- 
tics of the radical theories. Lilburne had soon 
learned that what help he could obtain from the 
army must come in spite of the higher officers. He 
had been at work upon the private soldiers of the 
army, and by his own account had had much to do 
with putting them into a posture of resistance to the 
Parliament." The "gentlemen Independents" re- 
alized clearly enough the existence of this division 
in their ranks. "Your trusty and good freind 
Lilburne" ran a letter of information of Jiily 8 
written, Professor Firth thinks, by Scout Master 
Watson, "is printing his [letter] against Rich and 
the Abbott and me, and saith in so many words 
(to Captaine White of the Tower) that he had 
rather cutt Sir Harry Vane's throate than Hollis's. 
It was in some bodys power to have quench 'd this 
fire (we speak not as to our own particulars) while 

2' "I applyed my selfe," he says, "vigorously unto the honest blades, 
the private Soulders, I meane, of the Army. . . , And when by 
much industry with much opposition from your selfe and others of your 
fellow Grandees in the Army, I had been instrimientall with the expence 
of a great deale of money, and with all the interest and industry I had 
in the world; acted both night and day to settle the Souldiers in a com- 
pleat and just posture, by their faithfull agitators chosen out by common 
consent from amongst themselves, as resolute, fit, and just instruments 
to effect my Liberty, to give a checke to tyranny, and settle the peace 
and justice of the Kingdome, not looking for any good at all from your- 
selfe, and the rest of your fellow-great ones [who are sellmg the liberties 
of England] . . . ." lonahs Cry, p. 9. He tells a similar story 
in a letter to Fairfax printed in The Ivglers Discovered, Oct. 1, 1647, E. 
409 (22). 



BIRTH OF THE LEVELLER PARTY 175 

it was a spark, which perhaps in time may grow 
too great to be quenched. "^^ 

The chances for harmony between the army, the 
ParHament, and the radicals were not improved by 
the fact that the radical chief remained shut up in 
the Tower. Chafing under his detention in prison, ^^ 
Lilburne taught his followers that the House of 
Commons had no legal authority so long as the mem- 
bers who had sat in the absence of the speakers 
remained unexpelled; therefore he refused to ac- 
knowledge this " linsey woolsey " House in any such 
way as petitioning the members directly for his 
liberty. This attitude would not, so he said, pre- 
vent him from accepting his freedom passively at 
their hands. At times his anger against them 
rose so high that he threatened to appeal to the 

28 Clarke Papers, I, 158. 

29 One incident may be noted to illustrate his irritation. In the 
spring, he thought that his failure to secure a hearing and a report on his 
case to the House of Commons was due to Marten's negligence. Lil- 
burne could conceive of only one remedy; and he printed late in May an 
angry letter to Marten, Rash Oaths unwarrantable. Marten thought of 
replying in print; and Lilburne, having been convinced by Walwyn that 
Harry had really done his utmost, being as swift in his penitence as 
he had been in his anger, urged Marten to take this means of clearing 
himself. Like a chivalrous combatant of the pen, he offered to pay for 
the printing of Marten's retort. By the end of July when he made this 
offer. Marten seems to have thought better of rushing into print and 
merely returned Lilburne a good-humored, if somewhat patronizing, 
letter. Apparently Lilburne printed it along with one of his own in 
which he offered to stand good for Marten's printer's bill. 

The beginning of a jocose pamphlet by Marten in reply is in the 
Loder Symonds Mss. Its title is "Rash censures uncharitable"! Hist. 
Mss. Comm. XIII, 400. The two letters printed by Lilburne are in 
Two Letters: The One From Lievtenam Colonell lohn Lilbourne To Colonel 
Henry Martin . . . With His Answer, 8122 d 69. 



176 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

army to cut them off; actually he made some such 
appeal after September 14, saying he would see 
what the hobnails and clouted shoes and the private 
soldiers of the army would do for him and for them- 
selves. He tried when in this mood to avoid ap- 
pearing before a committee of the House that was 
considering his case, pleading that he could not 
conscientiously accept its authority.*" 

Lilburne and Overton also had misgivings of the 
good faith of the officers. For Fairfax they had a 
real esteem, but they heartily distrusted Cromwell 
and Ireton and their adherents. Both of the rad- 
icals were quick to scent the officers' intention of 
transacting business in the Council of War rather 
than along with the "agitators" in the Council of 
the Army ; and they warned the soldiers to be on 
their guard. Overton warned the men that there 
was a plot afoot to rob the men of all voice in the 
army's councils; for a declaration had issued from 
Fairfax and the council of war instead of from 
Fairfax and the officers and soldiers." Lilburne 
published his letters to Cromwell and Fairfax with 
the avowed intention of putting the privates on 



^^ Two Letters Writ By Lievt Col. John Lilburne, Prerogative prisoner 
in the Tower, Sept. 22, 1647, E. 407 (41). 

In The Ivglers Discovered he declared that had he done as the soldiers 
wished — broken jail and come to them — he would have led them sword 
in hand to cut off the tyrants at Westminster. Pp. 2, 3. 

In spite of his scruples, he had a hearing before a committee, October 
20; November 9 the House of Commons ordered that he be at liberty to 
go abroad without a keeper, provided he return at night to the Tower. 
Journal, V, 353. 

'^ Overton's Appeale, p. 30. 



BIRTH OF THE LEVELLER PARTY 177 

their guard against the doubtful dealing of the 
"Grandees." 

The radicals dated their formal break with the 
"gentlemen Independents" from about the 20th of 
August when Walwyn sought to persuade the offi- 
cers to trust the guarding of the Tower to the city 
radicals rather than raise a new regiment for the 
purpose. Price and Lordell of Goodwin's congre- 
gation out-argued Walwyn. The radicals broke 
off relations, accusing the Independents of seeking 
to carry on a "New England design;" w^ords fit to 
be pondered by one comparing parties in Old and 
New England in the days of the Great Civil War.'^ 

The breach between the Levellers and the Gran- 
dees was of course welcome to the Royalist WTiters, 
who by September had turned against the army 
leaders. They gave the warmest encouragement 
to Lilburne's dread of Cromwell's ambition. Prob- 
ably they thought that their policy was to foment 
by all means possible the attacks on Cromwell.^" 
Down to the escape of the king from Hampton 
Court, Royalist journals such as Mercurius Prag- 
maticus and Mercurius Elencticus caressed Lilburne, 
the agents, and the Levellers. It is true they insin- 

^2 Walwyns Just Defence (p. 1) puts the occurrence at the time when 
the army's headquarters were at Kingston. Rushworth (VII, 789) says 
that the question of a guard for the Tower had been considered for some 
days before the twenty-fourth; according to the same authority (p. 792) 
the headquarters were removed from Kingston to Putney August 28. 
The expression regarding the "New England design" is in Prince, The 
Silken Independents Snare Broken, June 20, 1649, E. 560 (24), p. 2. The 
same phrase is in Two Letters, E. 407 (41). 

^* Such attacks are in the second Two Letters; The Ivglers Discovered. 



178 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

uated that Lllbutne's fellow-prisoner, the Royalist 
judge, David Jenkins, had carefully trained him in 
resistance to the usurped authority of the Commons ; 
but they gave the pupil full credit for his bold op- 
position to Cromwell. As late as October 26, they 
spread the report that Lilburne would soon declare 
for the king.^* 

The departure of the king from Hampton Court 
on the night of November 11 rid the Levellers of 
these would-be friends, Charles had named as one 
reason for his departure the fact that the Levellers 
had threatened to assassinate him. Under the 
circumstances the Royalist journals could only 
accept the statement for truth, and load Lilburne 
and his friends with the abuse which the sin of 
regicide merited. ^^ The Levellers, clear of both 
the Independents and Royalists, could now develop 
their program unhampered. 

^Pragmaiiciis, Oct. 19-26; Elencticus, Oct. 29-Nov. 5. The super- 
ficial resemblance of his political affiliations in the past to those of 
Marchamont Nedham might have suggested that his opposition to the 
governing powers would end like Nedham's; for Nedham had been a 
furious Parliament man and Independent until 1646. One of the ephem - 
eral journals that endeavored to oppose Pragmaticus — Mercurius 
Anti-Pragmalicus — Oct. 12-19, declared that Nedham had assisted Lil- 
burne in the composition of The Ivglers Discovered. This in itself is not 
very likely. Lilburne was also accused of being completely under the 
influence of the Royalists who fuddled him with drink, and then set him 
on to desperate designs against the state. The additional Plea. 

'* That there was any real plot among the Levellers to assassinate the 
king, as distinguished from bringing him to trial, is doubtful. See Note 
] p. 189. 



BIRTH OF THE LEVELLER PARTY 179 

III. POLITICAL THEORIES OF 1 647 

The party reversals and alliances of 1647 appear 
less arbitrary if studied in the light of the pamphlet 
controversy. In that controversy the different par- 
ties reveal their positions when they attempt to 
define the army's right to interfere in politics. 
The Royalists, when they hoped for the king's 
restoration at the hands of the army, stated that 
right as the right of good and loyal subjects to 
succor their king. The Levellers took an entirely 
different position. They were convinced that the 
failure of the House of Commons to fulfil the 
people's trust and free the nation had cancelled 
its power of attorney; therefore the kingdom was 
without government, and in a state of nature. 
Accordingly, every honest man was at liberty to 
promote the kingdom's welfare by what means 
seemed best to him; and if the army professed 
such an end, it had the right to pursue it. How- 
ever, Ireton and the men who assisted him in draw- 
ing the army declarations were unwilling to adopt 
entirely either justification. They hesitated at 
such a restoration of the king as the Royalists 
demanded; and they minimized like cautious men 
the degree of the kingdom's reversion to a state 
of nature. Although their defenders pleaded the 
law of nature and necessity, the army leaders were 
eager to take shelter under the wing of parliamen- 
tary authority as soon as possible; and accordingly 
they shrank from admitting that the rightful au- 
thority of the constituted government was at an 
end. 



180 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

As early as March the Levellers had pronounced 
the kingdom in a state of nature. Such utterances 
at dates corresponding with those of the burnt 
petitions create a suspicion that those petitions 
were intended to provoke Parliament to extreme 
repressive measures that would justify an appeal 
to the nation. On March i, Lilburne and Overton 
in The Out-cryes of oppressed Commons, ^^ threatened 
to make such an appeal in case the House continued 
to refuse them justice. They admitted that no 
legal form or warrant for appeal existed; it would 
destroy the constitution of the kingdom, and cast 
it back on the original law of nature. But the 
House of Commons by failing to do them justice 
according to the law of the land had itself rooted 
up the recorded rights and privileges of their fellow- 
commoners, and left England, void of just govern- 
ment, in a state of nature. Therefore the funda- 
mental laws of the kingdom could be saved from 
destruction only by a recurrence to the law of 
nature and an appeal to the people." 

ME. 378 (13). 

'^ A Warning For all the Counties of England is more specific. It 
charges the majority of the House of Commons with plotting to enslave 
the kingdom. One step in their design was to disband the army. A 
second involved weeding out the "faithful" members in the House by 
the imposition of oaths which they must in conscience refuse. The 
avowed program of this plot was the City Remonstrance. The "Warn- 
ing" concludes by calling on the people to exact an accounting from their 
servants, and if it is not satisfactory, to recall power into their own hands. 
Mar. 24, 1646/7, E. 381 (13). 

July 17, 1647, Overton really did issue a.n" Appeale" from the repre- 
sentatives of the people to the people themselves. Its logical content 
is not very different from that laid down in the Out-cryes oj oppressed 
Commons. Overton sweeps aside the admitted lack of precedent for an 



BIRTH OF THE LEVELLER PARTY 181 

The breach between the House of Commons and 
the radicals which induced the latter to appeal to 
the people changed in a marked degree Lilburne's 
attitude toward the king. Lilburne no longer as- 
sailed the arbitrary power of the king and the Lords ; 
neither did he exalt the power of the people's own 
trusted House of Commons. He was now com- 
pelled to admit that the salvation to which he had 
hoped the House had been leading the people during 
the past seven years was a vain dream. The House 
constituted an arbitrary and irresponsible govern- 
ment over the people, crushing them down by the 
law when the letter of the law was on its side, and 
overriding the law when it served as a bulwark of 
the people's freedom. Since the House's members 
could no longer sit in high seats above the law, 
and guide the people to freedom, they must be 
judged and condemned by the law; and the people 
must look elsewhere for deliverance. If the Houses 
attempted to take a stand on their legal position 
in the state to bar the people from marching to 

appeal to the people with words taken from the Parliament declarations 
— reason is the fount of all just precedent. As reason gives being to 
all laws, they must all bend before reason. The principles of reason — 
that everything must defend its own existence, that necessity is a law 
above laws, that the equity of the law is superior to the letter — all war- 
rant his appeal. A fourth principle of reason that he deduces tends stiU 
more to his end; namely, that trusted powers, if forfeited, fall into the 
hands of those who gave them; and that misuse of them automatically 
works such a forfeit. Declaring that he will no longer consider the 
traitors at Westminster a just House of Commons, he urges all the peo- 
ple of England to rise up with the army to cut them off. The people 
have it in their power to depute their natural power of self-preservation 
to any who rise up to do the work for them; but, says Overton, the army 
must beware of paltering with the people. Pp. 1-30. 



182 TEE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

freedom under new leaders, the Houses must remem- 
ber that in 1642 they had justified the war against 
the king by the use of legal quibbles and arguments 
from salus populi that would far more easily apply 
to themselves. The king's power arose from the 
law, but the authority that Parliament had assumed 
could orginate only in the people's trust. Parlia- 
ment could be supreme only by grace of the Com- 
mons' recognition that their power was derived 
from the people's trust, and designed for the peo- 
ple's welfare. When on such terms the Commons 
claimed supremacy, they empowered the people to 
revoke their trust if it was abused. The law of 
nature under which the members of the Houses 
had armed the people in 1642 would justify people 
and army in cutting them off in 1647. 

Lilburne even considered that the king's past 
conduct compared favorably with that of the 
Houses. At least the king had never declared men 
traitors and rebels for petitioning him; and when 
all was said, his legal position was more plausible 
than that of Parliament. The army leaders in 
the declaration of June 14 had promised to effect 
the king's restoration after they had secured the 
people's liberties; and Lilburne, in urging Crom- 
well to keep a good understanding with the king, 
approved the avowed policy of the army.^^ Nor 
did he in this show himself inconsistent. He had 
in the past called the king a tyrant and murderer; 

2* In a letter of June 22. lonahs Cry, pp. 6 ff. The rest of the para- 
graph preceding this is a paraphrase of parts of Rash Oaths unwarrant- 
able. 



BIRTH OF THE LEVELLER PARTY 183 

but he was now convinced that the Houses were as 
bad. For the moment he thought it possible that 
the restoration of the people's liberties might come 
with the king. Lilburne had vehemently attacked 
kingship when the term was synonymous with 
arbitrary power; but he cared not what was the 
external form of the government of England, so 
long as that government was readily responsive to 
the people's wishes, and attentive to their rights 
and needs. 

The Royalists in their printed utterances showed 
themselves willing to accept the army as the restorer 
of the kingship, either as the king's legal agent, 
or as the empowered representative of the people; 
a loyal people tired of the Parliament's six years' 
rebellion, although content to reap the fruits of 
Parliament's earlier efTorts in behalf of their lib- 
erties.'^ The Independents, however, making a 
somewhat cautious application of radical argu- 
ments, did not accord the king quite such an impor- 
tant place in their program ; to them his restoration 
was a means to an orderly settlement of the king- 

«T//e Riddles Unr idled, July 14, 1647, E. 398 (8); A Letter Really 
■written by a Moderate Cavallier to An Intelligent . . . Independent, 
June 26, 1647, E. 394 (4). 

Marchamont Nedham gave a cold-blooded analysis of the reasons 
that should induce the king to choose alliance with the Independents 
rather than the Presbyterians. His main reason was that the Presby- 
terian hierarchy was a dangerous enemy to monarchy, while the Inde- 
pendent system really involved a separation of church and state. The 
Case of the Kingdom Stated, According to the Proper Interests of the sever all 
parties Ingaged, June 12, 1647, E. 392 (13). Of course divine-right 
tracts appeared side by side with more moderate Royalist writing. Jas- 
per Mayne's Ochlomachia, E. 398 (19), came out July 15. 



184 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

dom; not the only means, and in no wise the end 
itself. The Declaration of the Army enumerated 
necessary reforms in Parliament, engaged the army 
to submit freely to parliaments so reformed, and 
then suggested that after the king had assented 
to the proposed reforms he might be restored to 
his due rights so far as consistent with the freedom 
of the subject and with public security.^" 

The Independents were inclined to justify the 
army's defiance of Parliament and its constituted 
authority by assuming that the army acted as the 
agent, not of the king, but of the people. The 
people, they thought, were capable of deciding when 
acts of Parliament were likely to ruin them, and 
might lawfully plead the "law of necessity," the 
"necessity that knows no law," for opposing the 
Parliament; for the people had not yielded up their 
right to judge of necessity any more than a traveler 
who hired a guide parted with his right to use his 
own judgment in case the guide fell blind by the 
way." To sum up in terms formerly employed by 

*"* The same order is maintained in the Heads of the Proposals. The 
Case Of The Armie later claimed that this order had been departed from, 
and that the re-enthroning of the king with his veto before a settlement 
of the kingdom's liberties was secured might well enslave the nation. 
Oct. 19, 1647, E. 411 (9), p. 6. 

<i The Army Harmelesse, July 16, 1647, E. 398 (27). A point that the 
apologists for the army found hard to handle was the deduction that if 
Parliament must sequester eleven members on the demand of the army, 
it rested in the power of the army to expel the whole Parliament, and 
put an end to the liberties, even to the existence of parliaments. Here 
they were compelled to quibble. The army would not do such a thing; 
because one judge on a bench could be impeached or proceeded against 
by the others, it did not follow that the independence of the remaining 
judges was gone. Reasons why the House of Conimam ought .... 
to suspend the Memffers ChUrged by the Army, July 1< 1647, E. 396 (1). 



BIRTH OF THE LEVELLER PARTY 185 

the radicals, the people were capable of deciding 
when the actions of their governors violated the 
law of reason, and the people could commission 
whom they would to execute their verdict. ^^ 

The theory that the people had employed the 
New Model Army to check the government in a 
passing emergency was quite different from Lil- 
burne's theory that the kingdom was in a state 
of nature. The extreme to which he carried this 
doctrine alarmed the more moderate Independents. 
Speaking of the action of the army in taking the 
"Solemn Engagement" in June, he pronounced 
that the army by that action had resolved itself 
into a state of nature. Its members held their 
swords in their hands for their own preservation, 
and must thenceforth act by mutual agreement on 
principles of reason and safety arising from nature 
itself.^* When in September the Council of the 
Army with a great flourish of trumpets had expelled 
a certain Major Francis White — a somewhat 
gloomy man and distinctly "otherwise minded" — 
for saying that there was no law in England but 
the sword, Lilburne cordially assented to the doc- 
trine, professing that a righteous act performed by 
a troop of horse was as good law as he could now 
see in England.^* The officers and those who repre- 

^'^ A deere and full Vindication Of the late Proceedings, July 12, 1647, 
E. 397 (21). 

*^ Jonahs Cry, p. 13. 

^ Two Letters Writ By Lievt. Col. John Lilburne, Sept. 22, 1647, E. 
407 (41), p. 6. The Copy of a Letter Sent to His Excellencie Sir Thomas 
Fairfax . ... By Francis White, Maior of the Generalls Regiment 
of Foot, Nov. 11, 1647, E. 413 (17). 



186 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

sented their point of view realized the ill-effect on 
public opinion of the doctrine that the army was 
in a state of nature. ^^ They saw too that it abro- 
gated the discipline of the army, and left on a very 
precarious footing the right of the officers to com- 
mand. Lilburne, on the other hand, was quite 
content to see military discipline at an end; for in 
such a case the power of the agitators would be 
as great as the power of the Grandees, and Lilburne 
trusted in the good intentions of the representatives 
of the common soldiers far more than in the good 
intentions of the officers. 

The Presbyterians of course subjected the army's 
position to keen criticism. It was easy to argue 
with truth that the army in reality had the support 
of but a small fraction of the people. But the 

*^ The authors of The Case Of The Artnie protested against the reces- 
sion of the army from the law of nature on which it had at first taken its 
stand. Pp. 4, 5,7. In the middle of July the agitators desired a march 
on London to force the accomplishment of their ends; the officers, Crom- 
well especially, wished to delay, and trust to the eflorts of their friends 
in Parliament for obtaining their demands. The radical party in London 
sided with the agitators. Clarke Papers, 1, 206-209. Ireton drew a sharp 
distinction between the condition of the army in July and that which it 
had occupied in June. At the time of the "Engagement" "Wee were in 
all probability butt as ruin'd men, under noe acknowledgement nor 
own'd by noe body, by noe aucthoritie in the Kingdome." Allen, one 
of the agitators, repUed, attempting to show that even in July the army 
wasnot really "owned "by the Parliament. 76/(/., pp. 199-201. Crom- 
well and Fairfax moved the army on London only when the Parliament 
under the coercion of the city mob had already ceased to be a free Parlia- 
ment. After force had actually been used on the Parliament, Lilburne 
professed himself as unwilling to acknowledge it as a Parliament until 
the members of the Lords and Commons who had sat with the illegally 
elected speakers were purged out. 



BIRTH OF THE LEVELLER PARTY 187 

Presbyterians went farther.^^ They denied that 
there was any power in the people that could 
enable it to perform any act of government or 
employ extraordinary means for its own deliver- 
ance. The men of the army could judge only by 
right of the length of their swords; and as soon as 
a longer sword came, their judgment would be 
reversed. Above all, their proceedings would end 
in the establishment of a mobocracy. "Consider," 
said one author, "that if you let loose the bands 
of Government, and you that are Officers by your 
own example (and it may be further) teach the 
Souldiers to disobey the Parliament, that lesson will 
serve to teach them likewise how to resist their 
own Officers, and this you may take as a sure Rule, 
That a multitude will not long be servants to any 
designe, but within a while they will be Masters 
of it."47 

The army leaders were far more uncomfortably 
conscious of the force of such criticisms than the 
Levellers. In fact the officers were eager to mini- 
mize the extent to which the kingdom or the army 
was resolved into a state of nature. They were 
aware of the contradictory nature of their position, 

*' There are many tracts that are mere wails of despair; for instance: 
Works of Darkness Brought to Light, July 23, 1647, E. 399 (36); New 
Presbyterian Light springing out of Independent Darknes, July 30, 1647, 
E. 400 (24) ; Some Queries Propounded to the Common Councell, July 30, 
1647, E. 400 (26). There are satires in the same key. The Totall and 
Finall Demands already made by, and to be expected from, the Agitators And 
Army, July 21, 1647, E. 399 (9). 

*^ The Laufulnes Of The Late Passages Of The Army, June 28, 1647, 
E. 394 (12). 



188 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

in claiming to act by authority of a Parliament 
they had coerced by armed force. At best their 
position was well-nigh revolutionary, disguise it as 
they would. Of that the arguments of the army's 
own pamphleteers were sufficient proof. The offi- 
cers had reason to pay attention to those Presby- 
terians who warned them that the doctrine on 
which they resisted the Parliament would allow the 
private soldiers in their turn to mutiny against 
their officers when they saw occasion. If in 1647 
the Grandees disbelieved this, the future was to 
afford them ample opportunity to quench in blood 
mutinies kindled on the pretext of the "Solemn 
Engagement." When they engaged against the 
Parliament in 1647 for the sake of restoring the 
people's liberties, they may not have foreseen the 
possibility of a scene like that in Burford church- 
yard on the 15th of May, 1649. But, unless they 
were prepared to aver that their application of the 
law of necessity was the only valid one, they must 
at the end have admitted that the same law of 
necessity justified the mutiny they abetted in 1647, 
and the Leveller uprising of 1649. Almost to the 
Restoration one succeeding government after an- 
other was driven to crush rebels whose aims it must 
have admitted were just, and warranted by its own 
engagements and pledges, even if inexpedient. The 
curse was already on the track of the army officers 
in 1647. The Levellers alone were to devise any 
expedient that in the faintest degree ofTered a 
possibility of escape from the vicious circle in which 
Cromwell and his supporters were to be involved 
deeper and deeper as the years went on. 



BIRTH OF THE LEVELLER PARTY 189 

The Levellers, frankly admitting in 1647 the 
revolutionary position of the kingdom, believed 
that a settlement in such a situation would restore 
a larger share of the nation's liberties than could 
otherwise be expected. In this belief for a time 
they had looked as opportunists to army, city Inde- 
pendents, and king for the security of the nation's 
rights. When they found none of these would 
serve, they were free to seek in the dissolution of 
all established authority a new method of making 
the people's liberties the supreme law of the king- 
dom. 

NOTES 

I. Alleged Leveller Assassination Plots in the 
Fall of 1647 

Several pieces of contemporary evidence which have been treated by 
modern historians as more or less credible connect the Levellers with 
assassination plots against the king or against Cromwell in October and 
November, 1647. Perhaps the best known bit of evidence of this sort 
is the letter signed "E. R." which Charles I left behind him when he 
fled from Hampton Court. This letter is directed to the king and dated 
November 9. It states that the writer's brother had the night before 
been at a meeting where eight or nine agitators had discussed a design 
of making away with the king. These desperate men, says the informant, 
expected the support of the army preachers, Dell and Peters, because of 
the bitter language they had so often used against the king. Finally, 
the writer suggests his own house in "Broade Street" as a possible 
refuge for Charles. 

The first and mosj important step toward deciding the authenticity 
of this letter is to determine as nearly as possible the source from which 
it originated. Dr. Gardiner {Great Civil War, IV, 15) suggested that the 
letter might have been written by Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Lilburne, 
and that John was his informant. A certain plausibility is given this 
conjecture by the fact that Henry Lilburne and Paul Hobson were later 
accused of spreading to the discredit of the agitators a story of their plot 
to assassinate the king. The tale went that John had told Henry of the 



190 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

designs of the agitators, and that Cromwell, on Henry's information, 
had written a letter to Colonel Whalley at Hampton Court that had scared 
the king away. Lilburne, however, denied that he had told his brother 
anything of the sort; and though he and the men involved repeatedly 
protested against the circulation of the story, none of them, so far as I 
know, ever accused Henry of writing the " E. R." letter, though the letter 
had been published immediately after the king's flight. Innocency And 
the Blood of the slain Soiildiers, Aug. 9, 1649, E. 568 (12), p. 11; The 
Prisoners Plea for a Habeas Corpus, April 4, 1648, E. 434 (19). There is 
hardly enough evidence to fasten the authorship of the letter on Henry 
Lilburne. 

Further, if we assume that the letter was from Henry Lilburne we 
must suppose that he had reached a degree of intimacy with the king 
that would enable Charles to divine his identity from the crj^^tic signa- 
ture "E. R." The reference to the house in Broad street was probably 
misleading; for if Charles knew that the letter came from a friend and 
that the Broad street house was a genuine address, he would not have 
left behind him a clue by which the authorities might so easily hunt out 
one who had tried to do him service. This leaves but one statement in 
the letter that is not either misleading or common gossip — that one re- 
garding the presence of the writer's brother at a meeting of agitators. 
It is possible that some political confidant of the king had a brother on 
familiar terms with the agitators; it is as likely that Henry Lilburne was 
that confidant as that anyone else was. But it is far easier to suppose 
that the statement regarding the writer's brother was a blind, and to re- 
ject as improbable the hypothesis that the letter was from a correspondent 
of the king, or was designed in good faith to furnish him genuine informa- 
tion. 

The chances are that the letter was one of two things: a blind con- 
cocted by a Royalist close to the king, to afford a pretext for the king's 
flight; or a Presbyterian artifice to get the king away from the army. 
The latter hypothesis has some circumstantial evidence to support it. At 
an earlier time the Scotch commissioners had first urged the king's coming 
to London, and then opposed it, with the design of getting him out of the 
quarters of the army and into their own hands. This may have been 
another attempt of the same sort. Berkeley's Narrative, Maseres, 
Tracts, I, 373-6. In either case, the author's testimony as to the inten- 
tions of the Levellers is of little value. 

Dr. Gardiner thinks worthy of mention {Great Civil War, IV, 21) a 
contemporary accusation that the Levellers conspired to kill Cromwell. 
The only authority for this is Walwins Wiles, p. 14. The whole book 
is avowedly an attack on Walwyn; the story in question is told to 



BJRTH OF THE LEVELLER PARTY 191 

injure him, but though a careless reader might believe he is accused 
of complicity, he really is not. The existence of the plot is vouched for 
on the authority of an anonymous witness who was told of it by a person 
concerned as a principal; Walwyn denied all knowledge of it. Walwyns 
Just Defence. 

With this may be coupled a "plot" of the same sort unearthed by 
Godwin — one by Wildman and Lilburne to kill Cromwell in the late 
summer of 1647. Godwin's essential evidence is a statement from Hol- 
les's Memoirs that the radicals were in great wrath against Cromwell " and 
as appears by that business of Lilburn and Wildman, even resolve to 
take Cromwell out of the way, and murder him for an Apostate." 
Maseres, Tracts, I, 295. Manifestly Holies was speaking of something 
that was a matter of common report — past all doubt the accounts of the 
meeting at Wapping of January 16, 1647/8 that Lilburne and Wildman 
had attended. Undoubtedly the thing he referred to was their story 
that a certain member of the Commons (Harry Marten) had cherished 
a design of assassinating Cromwell for apostatizing to the king. It is 
difficult to be patient with Godwin when he turns this into a design 
by Lilburne and Wildman to murder Cromwell. As he lets the impu- 
tation color his account of the army councils of October and November, 
so that it becomes a narrative of the two guilty plotters' alliance with 
the high-minded repubUcans of the army, the vicious result of his mis- 
take can easily be seen. Godwin, Commonwealth, II, 434. 

II. Lilburne's Attitxtde toward the Commons in 1647 

The only excuse for the violence of Lilburne's language against the 
Commons in 1647 is that over a year's illegal and expensive imprisonment 
had provoked it from a man whose spirit had been rasped, but not broken 
by illegality and injustice. In simple justice to him it should be said 
that he was importunate for a decision in his own case from a sense of the 
importance of the principle at stake, rather than from undue consideration 
of his own welfare. When he learned that the Army Council was consider- 
ing the possibility of releasing him on bail, he begged that all thought of 
such a thing might be abandoned, as in a measure it would surrender the 
principle for which he had contended — that the jurisdiction of the Lords 
over commoners was illegal from top to bottom. If bail was the only 
device that occurred to the army, he begged to be left to his fate. "I 
walk not, nor act not from accidents," he wrote Fairfax, on another pro- 
posal of compromise, "but from principals, and being throughly perswad- 
ed in my own soule they are iust, righteous, and honest, I will by Gods 
goodnesse never depart from them though I perish in maintaining them; 



U2 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

. . . . and therefore I both must and will run the hazard of spending 
my heart blood, to root up and destroy their [the Lords] illegal and unjust 
usurpations .... and can never willingly without being a Tray- 
ter to my self and Country, consent in this to close, with them . . . ." 
The Ivglers Discovered, pp. 4, 9. To show his disinterestedness he of- 
fered to leave England until a permanent peace was made, if only the 
Commons would formally deny the Lords' right to jurisdiction in first 
resort over commoners, and either do Lilburne himself reasonable justice, 
or leave his case to the next Parliament. In a formal offer of this sort 
on October 6, he made his terms the nullifying of his sentence, £2,000 
Star-Chamber damages, and £600 arrears. The additional Plea of Lievt 
Col. lohn Lilburne, Nov. 1, 1647, E. 412 (11). But in spite of all his 
disinterestedness, his bias hindered his party from acquiescing in the 
army's dealing with the Parliament. 



CHAPTER VI 

The First Agreement of the People 

i. the need for a stable constitution 

TN the fall of 1647 the radicals brought forth a 
"*- new design for the realization of their political 
ideals. In the spring they had learned that the 
Long Parliament would not aid them in freeing 
the people; therefore they had pronounced the 
kingdom in a state of nature, and all lawful govern- 
ment at an end. Now a group of radicals in the 
army, acting under Leveller tutelage and following 
out the Leveller political ideas, planned that the 
people themselves secure their rights and end the 
civil war by establishing a government responsible 
to themselves and bound by paramount law from 
endangering their liberties.^ 

^ Infra, p. 232, for the close relation between the civilian and army 
LeveUers. At the beginning, an estimate of the book that has 
handled the theme of this chapter in most detail may be interesting. 
Dr. Walther Rothschild in Der Gedanke der geschriehenen Verfassimg 
in der englischeti Revolution analyses minutely the development of the 
idea of the written constitution through the various propositions, pro- 
posals, and agreements. A criticism Ues against his method in that he 
at once tries to prove too much and too little. He interprets every de- 
mand for the establishment of popular liberties or parliamentary privi- 
leges as implying a desire for a written constitution. Dr. Rothschild, 
however, does not take into account what is more probably implied in 
such demands — a sense of the bindmg force of custom and precedent, 
and a desire for its sanction to the new constitutional settlement. Again 
one returns to the words of Professor Mcllwain quoted in an earlier 
chapter: "The vaUdity of the law is not due to the form of the docu- 

193 



194 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

The idea of limiting government by law was in 
the air. A reestablishment of the constitution in 
such form that it could not again be set aside by 
the rivalry of king and Parliament was probably 
the one thing that men of all parties desired. The 
army especially was concerned in seeing the results 
of the war embodied in a stable and enduring peace. 
By means that might easily be held seditious, it 
had achieved a political importance out of all pro- 
portion to its numbers; therefore it would be the 
first to suffer if the settlement it dictated were 
undone. Accordingly, self-interest suggested to the 
army the establishment of a peace that would curb 
the power of both Parliament and king; and with 
this end in view the radicals among the rank and 
file finally proposed something very close to a 
written constitution. 

Under the circumstances it is surprising that 
the army leaders failed to devise any adequate 
security for the permanence of the constitutional 
settlement they sought to negotiate with the king. 
True, the changes proposed by Ireton's Heads of 
the Proposals^ did not alter the ancient constitu- 

raent, but rather to the character of the principles." The agreements 
and proposals that Dr. Rothschild catalogues of course are constitu- 
tional proposals and in writing, but only in a very narrow sense does this 
make them written constitutions. On the other hand, Dr. Rothschild 
hardly lays sufficient stress on the tendency to regard such proposals 
as statements of paramount law, although from 1647 to 1649 that ten- 
dency becomes more and more apparent. 

* The Heads of the Proposals were probably drawn by Commissary- 
General Ireton with Lambert's assistance. A draft of them was in 
existence by July 17, and they were published August 2. Clarke Papers, 
I, xl-xli. See Note I, p. 226. 



FIRST AGREEMENT OF THE PEOPLE 195 

tional system in any of its essentials. The Heads 
of the Proposals took the form of sketches for acts 
of Parliament. If king, Lords, and Commons had 
assented to these acts, the kingdom might have 
passed from a state of war to a state of peace by 
means of constitutional forms that were already 
familiar and customary. One clause in the first 
draft of the Proposals, making the king's veto 
merely suspensive, might have presented difficul- 
ties; but in the finished document it was omitted.' 
Once the king had assented to the acts of Parlia- 
ment specified, he could have questioned the con- 
stitutionality of the settlement only by professing 
that his assent had been extorted under duress. 
On the other hand, the Lords and Commons of 
the Long Parliament by passing the acts would 
of their own accord have surrendered the illimi- 
table powers they claimed over the nation to a 
succession of parliaments, each limited by law to 
eight months' duration. 

Precisely because the Heads of the Proposals pre- 
served the older forms, they lacked the element of 
permanence. Being acts of Parliament, the pro- 
visions of the Heads of the Proposals could legally 
be repealed by any future Parliament. Ireton's 
solution pledged the nation to acquiescence in the 
acts of absolute parliaments, limited only by eight 
month leases of power and yearly elections; and 
Ireton could offer no efi^ective guarantee that even 
these limitations might not be repealed. He him- 

' Putney Protects. Or the Old Serpent In a new Forme, John Lawmind 
Wadman], Dec. 30, 1647, E. 421 (19), p. 14. 



196 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

self would shrink from tampering with a constitu- 
tional settlement that professed to be permanent, 
even though its abrogation were technically possi- 
ble. The only safeguard for the Proposals would 
be that so far his attitude was typically English.* 
The point will be clearer if we contrast with the 
Heads of the Proposals certain propositions pub- 
lished m An Appeale by Richard Overton: 

Concerning Parliaments. 

1. That for the future, the election and expulsion of 
Parliament Members may be so setled in the Electors, that 
none may be hindered, debard, or expulsed from serving his 
Country under any colour or pretence whatsoever, as for 
refusing the Covenant or other wise without order first, 
assent or concurrence of their Countrey. 

2. That for the better security of the interest and power 
of the people, all titles by Prerogative, Priviledge, Pattent, 
Succession, Peerage, Birth or otherwise to sit and act in 
the Assembly of Parliament, contrary to, and without the 
free choice and Election of the People, be utterly abrogated, 
nuld and made voide, and that all such so sitting, may be 
removed from sitting therein. 

3. That the authority of Parliament may bee preserved 
and secured for the future from the obstructions and preju- 

*Ireton in debate put more emphasis on the constitutional side of 
the Proposals than I have indicated. "Wee doe thinke that the set- 
tlement of peace is by having a settlement of itt in our hands; if ever 
itt doe come to settle, itt must bee by setting downe some thinge that 
may bee a rule to lay a foundation for the common rights and liberties 
of the people, and for an established peace in the Nation." Clarke 
Papers, I, 197, July 16, 1647. 

The author of A Plain, Short, And Probable Expedient proposed as 
a means of legally garnering the fruits of the war, that Parliament, in 
accord with precedent in the case of the inability of the king to dis- 
charge his duties, appoint a regent who should proceed to frame a strin- 
gent oath, and administer it to the king; this done, the king might safely 
be restored. Nov. 4, 1647, E. 412 (28). 



I 



FIRST AGREEMENT OF THE PEOPLE 197 

dice of a negative voyce in any person or persons whatso- 
ever.^ 

Clearly new constitutional machinery must be 
devised to put in effect such limitations of govern- 
ment. If the king's and Lords' negative voice were 
taken away on the ground that it was and had 
always been illegal, king and Lords could scarcely 
be asked to give their consent to the act abolishing 
their veto. Probably they would refuse assent; the 
fact that their assent was asked would be a strange 
commentary on the theory that their assent had 
never of right been necessary. Moreover, Over- 
ton would surely demand further security for the 
nation's freedom than limitations on future parlia- 
ments sanctioned merely by Long Parliament acts. 

Stricter constitutional limitation upon govern- 
ment than the English people had known in gener- 
ations was essential; and thought of this need and 
of what might satisfy it had been running in men's 
heads for months past. Thus pamphleteers were 
demanding that the privileges of Parliament be 
definitely stated, and assigned certain limits. How- 
ever, even the Heads of the Proposals purported 
to do this; the question was rather who should 
determine and enforce the limitations. Very sig- 
nificant in this connection is one otherwise very 
commonplace pamphlet — The Lawyers Bane. Or, 
The Lawes Reformation.^ It begins with the state- 

^ P. 32. See foot note 37, p. 180, supra. 

» Aug. 13, 1647, E. 401 (36), p. 11. The note to the reader is signed 
"Nicholsone". For the tendency mentioned above, see The Lmvyer 
of Lincolnes-I nne Reformed by Marchamont Nedham, July 1, 1647, E. 
395 (4). " 



198 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

ment that since ignorance of the law excuses no one, 
the laws should be short, few, and compendious, 
"and withal so easy and plaine to be understood, 
that if any man should plead ignorance of them, 
it could be no other than wilfull & affected." The 
writer proposes a thorough revision of the laws, 
both common and statute; the sum of them in so 
far as it accords with the "genius" of the people 
is to be set down in short compass, and all other 
law abrogated. In the light of this provision for 
putting the laws of the kingdom into a form in 
which they would be plain to all men, the constitu- 
tional conclusions of the piece acquire a new 
interest. 

since .... the Law is that which terminates and 
bounds the rights and interests of all men, as well of the 
King in his Prerogative, as of the people in their priviledges 
and immunities, and seeing these are the two Poles, upon 
which .... the Sphear of government moves, whose 
influences, if they keep their equall and just distances, are 
peace and happinesse; and on the contrary, if they interfere 
and clash together, they produce certaine ruine and destruc- 
tion to the Nation; and further considering that these two 
. . . . having been the causes and originalls of all the 
civill warres in this Nation, since the Norman-conquest (the 
contestation between the White rose and the Red not 
excepted: and therefore it were above all other things cor- 
dially to be wished and desired (the reformation of the Lawes, 
as aforesaid scarcely excepted) that the limites and extents 
of these two (viz. the Kings Prerogative and the peoples 
priviledges) might be throughly and throughly examined 
and enquired after, & being once certainly known and i > nd 
out they might by the consent, and to the good and happi- 
nesse of all Parties, be boundered out to all posterities with 
two Herculean pillars and a non plus ultra, in golden Capital 
letters written on them, to the everlasting peace, qiiietnesse 



FIRST AGREEMENT OF THE PEOPLE 199 

and prosperity both of King and People, so far as humane 
prudence may extend) in this and all succeeding generations. 

This cry for an end to constitutional innovation 
was characteristic of the time, for the seven years 
that had passed since 1640 had added to the 
nation's constitutional experience. Their events 
had taught rnen that the fundamental laws of the 
land could not resist interested and partial inter- 
pretation, because they were uncertain in content. 
The Lawyers Bane had suggested a written state- 
ment of the constitution, so plain as to be self- 
evident without interpretation. There was still 
the question of who should state the fundamental 
laws, and of how they might be invoked against 
government at need. The Levellers pressed on 
toward a solution of these questions, blindly at 
first, but with ever-increasing certainty as the years 
went by. 

II. THE GENESIS AND NATURE OF THE FIRST 
AGREEMENT 

The First Agreement of the People, the Leveller 
solution to the question of permanent peace, repre- 
sents a strange medley of political ideas that are 
hard to understand, and harder yet to describe. 
The Agreement is, and it is not, a written constitu- 
tion; yet it is the forerunner of agreements that 
answer every test that an American constitu- 
tionalist can apply. To be understood, the docu- 
ment must be studied as expounded by its authors ; 
and their exposition in turn must be weighed with 
their view of the actual political situation of 
October, 1647. 



200 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

The First Agreement of the People was the result 
of a growing consciousness among the rank and file 
that the army's situation was precarious in the 
extreme. By October the policy of Cromwell and 
Ireton had apparently broken down. The dullest 
observer would have dismissed as academic the 
question whether the Heads of the Proposals could 
ever be made the basis of a permanent constitu- 
tion. The king would have none of the Heads of 
the Proposals or any other terms that Cromwell and 
Ireton could obtain for him from their supporters. 
Neither could the army depend permanently on 
the Parliament; for the slightest relaxation of mili- 
tary coercion would restore the Presbyterians to 
power. If the army could not soon obtain from 
some source a constitutional settlement of unques- 
tioned validity, it might lose all it had won and 
at last fall victim to popular fury in a reaction that 
restored the king to power, unbound by conditions 
or bound only by those that he might disregard on 
plea of duress. Even if such a reaction merely 
restored the old constitution and the king's nega- 
tive voice, the king with the support of a nation 
hostile to the army might repeal any ordinary act 
of indemnity that the army had obtained. Mean- 
while the army was left by the government to find 
free quarter in private houses; and necessarily the 
best of armies in such a situation would be dis- 
orderly enough to provoke the hatred of its hosts.' 

^ A tract of 1649 urging the soldiers to win the affection of the people 
may afford an illustration. It exhorts them as follows: "be courteous 
and gentle towards all you meet, whether in the streets, or upon the 



FIRST AGREEMENT OF THE PEOPLE 201 

The attempt to secure by taxation sufficient funds 
to dispense with free quarter might render the 
army still more unpopular, not merely in the dis- 
tricts where it was quartered, but throughout the 
nation as well. 

The growing distrust of Cromwell and Ireton 
in the army was unfounded; but it was natural. 
Only a later generation has possessed the evidence 
needed to explain their conduct on other motives 
than hypocrisy, deceit, and self-seeking. They 
had persisted in their overtures to the king, until 
a section of their party in the House split off under 
Rainsborough and Marten on republican princi- 
ples.^ Moreover, five regiments of horse, influ- 
enced by distrust both of their representatives in the 
Army Council and of their leaders, chose new agents 
who practically represented the Leveller point of 

Roads; give them kind language & civil respects, without justling, or 
brushing or bustling for the way; a thing which some proud Officers have 
cherish'd too much in some rude persons: and at your Quarters exercise 
your selves in harmless refreshments, without noise or lavish expence 
and give the preeminence to the Master and Mistris of the Fa mily, whether 
rich or poor. " The English Souldiers Standard To Repaire to, Apr. 5, 1649, 
E. 550 (1), p. 10. See also Vox Popidi: Or The Svp plications and Pro- 
posalls of the Subjects of this miserable Kingdome: Languishing and almost 
expiring, under the heavy burden of Free Quarter, Nov. 1, 1647, E. 412 (15). 
* How closely Rainsborough was in touch with the Levellers at the 
time is uncertain. Marten was hand in glove with them. To draw a 
sharp line between the Leveller party and the republicans is impossible. 
There were many men with republican principles; but there was hardly 
a permanent republican party so definitely aUned as the Leveller party. 
The Levellers can scarcely be defined as purely republican; and the two 
sets of men were finally divided by the question of accepting or rejecting 
the government of the Commonwealth. A man like Ludlow would 
have but little in common with the Levellers. Gardiner, Great Civil 
War, III, 366 ff. 



202 TEE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

view. The news sent out from headquarters, it 
is true, insinuated that the "new agents" had the 
support of but a small minority of the army ; their 
actions, however, were confident and decided.' 

In a statement presented to Fairfax on October 
15, the agents registered their disapproval of the 
political course hitherto pursued by the army 
leaders. Nothing, the agents complained, had been 
done toward redressing the grievances that had 
first driven the army into revolt. Parliament's 
vote against the army's petition remained un- 
repealed, a standing disgrace to the army. Par- 
liament vouchsafed no consideration to the polit- 
ical reforms that the soldiers had demanded as 
Englishmen. Parliament itself was still defiled by 
the presence of corrupt and delinquent members; 
no date had been set for its dissolution. In the 
nation such old abuses as tithes and arbitrary com- 
mittees still flourished. In the army itself there 
was bad faith ; the provision of the Solemn Engage- 
ment that pledged the army neither to divide nor 
disband till full satisfaction was obtained had been 
technically violated. Moreover, the Grandees of 
the Army Council insidiously urged the soldiers to 
be content with demanding redress of their griev- 
ances as soldiers, and to abandon the political 
reforms which they had pledged themselves to 
secure as Englishmen. Inducing the soldiers to 

* Clarke Papers, I, xlvii. The choice of agents took place in the 
first part of October. By November eleven other regiments had chosen 
agents. Papers From The Arniie Concerning His Excellency and the 
Generall Councell, their dislike oj the Papers from the new Agents, Oct. 23, 
1647, E. 411 (19). 



FIRST AGREEMENT OF THE PEOPLE 203 

cheat the nation of the natural right and freedom 
they had promised, it was bad enough in itself; but 
the result was likely to be even worse. The king, 
with his right of veto, seemed likely to return to 
power before the people's freedoms were sufficiently 
secured. Thus the pledges made to the people by 
the Declaration of the Army would all be broken 
and discredited. Small wonder, the agents con- 
cluded, if the nation's affection toward the army 
had cooled ; for, if the nation could hope for nothing 
but tyranny, why should it prefer a hundred tyrants 
to one?^" 

Perhaps The Case Of The Armie exaggerated the 
army's unpopularity. It may have been far lighter, 
far more a passing mood than the agents for the 
five regiments supposed. But the blindest man in 
the army must have seen some degree of danger. 
Formerly there had appeared to be two ways of 
averting it. First, the army might have restored 
the king on terms that would have given it genuine 
security, and at the same time would have pacified 
the people with the reforms proposed in the Heads 
of the Proposals. Second, the army might have 
united with the Parliament, the only other legal or 
quasi legal authority in the kingdom, and have 
forced the king to terms by its aid. The first 
expedient had been tried and had failed because 
the king would not frankly meet the army half- 
way on the Heads of the Proposals; there was ever 
in his mind the possibility of a diplomatic game with 

^^ The Case Of The Armie Truly stated, Oct. 19, 1647, E. 411 (9). See 
Note II, p. 227. 



204 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

the English or Scotch Presbyterians in which the 
Covenant, the establishment of an intolerant Pres- 
byterianism, the militia, and the negative voice 
would be the counters. The second expedient — ac- 
cord with the majority of the House of Commons — 
was impossible for any length of time; first, be- 
cause the hold of the army's friends on the House 
could not be permanently relied on; second, because 
the army had repeatedly denounced long sessions 
of parliaments and, as public opinion then stood, 
it would be a matter of years at least before the 
army leaders could venture on a new election. 

Under these circumstances could the common 
soldier of the army, conscious of the hatred of 
fathers whose children were stinted in their scanty 
subsistence by the free quarter on which he lived, 
discover a third way out of the difficulty? It was 
plain to him that the hearts of the people were not 
with the army. Yet surely the people still desired 
the liberties for which the soldiers had engaged in 
the Parliament's quarrel with the king. Perchance 
the people's hearts had turned away from the army, 
because the army had neglected the people's lib- 
erties. If, then, the soldiery were able to devise 
an ample form of guaranty for the people's liberties, 
would not the people's hearts return to the army? 
A political catch-phrase of the time seemed to sug- 
gest such a guaranty. For the past six months 
politicians and pamphleteers had enumerated the 
various "interests" of the kingdom and discussed 
the possibility that some happy combination of 
interests might give lasting peace. The soldiers 



FIRST AGREEMENT OF THE PEOPLE 205 

had heard of the "king's interest," "the House of 
Commons interest," "the City interest," "the Pres- 
byterian interest," "the Scots' interest," "the army 
interest." Lilburne had repeatedly complained 
that in the "army interest" the common soldier 
had too small a voice. Further, Lilburne had 
taught that England was in a state of nature, and 
the legal authority of constituted government at 
an end. This doctrine would sanction the employ- 
ment of a novel method to bring about a combina- 
tion between the soldiers' interest and the people's 
interest. If these tw^o interests could once come to 
an agreement on a program, might they not be 
able to bring the war to a happy end by establish- 
ing the freedom that both soldiers and people 
seemed to crave? This idea in the minds of simple 
men, unaccustomed to sophisticated views of poli- 
tics, produced the name and the original idea of 
the Agreement of the People. 

Numerous proofs can be advanced to show that this 
was the idea in the minds of the agents who framed 
the Agreement of the People. First, in The Case 
Of The Armie the people were commiserated on 
finding in turn king, Parliament, and army to be 
all broken reeds. ". . . we wish therefore that 
the bowells of compassion in the whole armie might 
yearne towards their distressed brethren, and that 
they might with one consent say each to other, 
come let us joyne together speedily to demand 
present redresse for the peoples grievances, and 
securitie for all their and our own rights and free- 
domes as Soldiers and Commoners" (p. 13). A 



206 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

Cal To All The Souldiers Of The Armie, October 
29, urged the soldiery to seek the support of the 
people, "joyne and be one with them in heart and 
hand, with all possible speede in some substantial! 
and firme Agreement, for just freedom and com- 
mon right, that this nation may no longer flote 
upon such wavering, uncertain and sandy founda- 
tions of Government, which have been one of the 
greatest causes both of all your, & our predecessors 
miseries." Most significant of all, A Letter sent 
from several Agitators of the Army To their Respective 
Regiments, November 12, said: "we were constrained 
to propound the foundations of freedome to be 
forthwith established by a mutual agreement be- 
tween the people and you "^^ 

" The two last pamphlets cited above are E. 412 (10) and E. 414 (8). 
Additional instances might be multiplied. An Alarum To The Head- 
quarters, Nov. 4, 1647, E. 413 (10), p. 4, thus addresses the cabinet 
council: "Doe but you your duty, remove all oppressions, ease the 
Country, down with all monopolies, and tyrannous oppressions; draw 
up a Declaration fully to the People, and Remonstrate that this ye will 
doe for them, this yee will have, this yee have fought for, this you will 
maintajne, live and dye, for resolvedly: wee'le warrant you hobnailes 
and clouted shooes will give you harty thankes and help and assist you : 
You need not feare them, ease them of their oppressions, pitty their 
cries, redresse their grievances, and the work is done for them; for what 
say people, doe something or nothing; and if yee will not do it, tell the 
people so, if yee be faint-hearted . . . . if it be so, give way, 
let others come in, whose firme resolutions will stand, to engage for com- 
mon right and freedome, for liberty and for justice unto bloud, doe not 
therefore hinder others .... but suffer us to free our selves, 
and the whole commonalty of the Kingdome . . . ." 

The address to " the Free born People of England" that accompanied 
the Agreement of the People contains this passage: "Its grief and 
vexation of heart to us, to receive your meat or moneyes, whilest you 
have no advantage, nor yet the foundations of your peace and freedome 



FIRST AGREEMENT OF THE PEOPLE 207 

In short, the Agreement of the People was a de- 
vice to "avoid both the danger of returning into a 
slavish condition and the chargeable remedy of 
another war," by means of an accord between 
soldiers and people. The principle on which this 
coalition was to act was partially suggested in the 
Remonstrance Of Many Thousand Citizens — pop- 
ular control of government. Like the Remon- 
strance, the Agreement called for a succession of 
annual parliaments composed solely of the people's 
representatives, and elected in orderly course by 
the people. But the experience of the year that 
had elapsed since the Remonstrance had convinced 
the Levellers that this by itself was not enough. 
A higher power than Parliament must prescribe 
parliamentary elections, meetings, and adjourn- 
ments, and must also limit the legislative power of 
Parliament in the interest of the people's safety. 
The Agreement of the People was the agency by 
which the nation was to accomplish these ends. 

The Agreement of the People avowed as its 
immediate purpose the protection of the nation 
against being disappointed in future of "frequent 
national meetings in council." To this end repre- 
sentation must be equally apportioned according to 
the population of the kingdom. The Long Parlia- 

surely layed: & therefore upon most serious considerations that your 
principall right [is concerned in their efficient representation in Parlia- 
ment] .... wee desire you would consider, that as these things 
wherein we offer to agree with you, are the fruites & ends of the Victories 
which God hath given us ... . and when you and we shall be 
joyned together therein, [in the Agreement] we shall readily joyn with 
you to petition the ParUament . . . ." 



208 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

ment must dissolve on the last day of September 
of 1648; the people in March of each alternate year 
must as of course choose themselves a new Parlia- 
ment to sit until the last day of September follow- 
ing. As for the power of this Representative it 
was to be 

. . . . inferior only to theirs who choose them, and 
doth extend, without the consent or concurrence of any other 
person or persons, to the erecting and abolishing of offices 
and courts, to the appointing, removing and calling to 
account magistrates and officers of all degrees, to the mak- 
ing war and peace, to the treating with foreign States, and, 
generally, to whatsoever is not expressly or impliedly re- 
served by the represented to themselves: 

Which are as foUoweth. 

1. That matters of religion and the ways of God's worship 
are not at all entrusted by us to any human power, because 
therein we cannot remit or exceed a tittle of what our con- 
sciences dictate to be the mind of God without wilful sin: 
nevertheless the public way of instructing the nation (so it 
be not compulsive) is referred to their discretion. 

2. That the matter of impresting and constraining any of 
us to serve in the wars is against our freedom ; and therefore 
we do not allow it in our Representatives; the rather, because 
money (the sinews of war), being always at their disposal, 
they can never want numbers of men apt enough to engage 
in any just cause. 

3. That after the dissolution of this present Parliament, 
no person be at any time questioned for anything said or 
done in reference to the late public differences, otherwise 
than in execution of the judgments of the present Repre- 
sentatives or House of Commons. 

4. That in all laws made or to be made every person may 
be bound alike, and that no tenure, estate, charter, degree, 
birth, or place do confer any exemption from the ordinary 
course of legal proceedings whereunto others are subjected. 

5. That as the laws ought to be equal, so they must be 



FIRST AGREEMENT OF THE PEOPLE 209 

good, and not evidently destructive to the safety and well- 
being of the people. 

These things we declare to be our native rights, and there- 
fore are agreed and resolved to maintain them with our 
utmost possibiHties against all opposition whatsoever; being 
compelled thereunto not only by the examples of our ances- 
tors, whose blood was often spent in vain for the recovery 
of their freedoms, suffering themselves through fraudulent 
accommodations to be still deluded of the fruit of their vic- 
tories, but also by our own woeful experience, who, having 
long expected and dearly earned the establishment of these 
certain rules of government, are yet made to depend for the 
settlement of our peace and freedom upon him that intended 
our bondage and brought a cruel war upon us.^^ 

This document inevitably tempts comparison 
with American written constitutions. In drawing 
such a comparison we must proceed with caution. 
We may not assume that similar phraseology proves 
similar content; because to our own age one con- 
stitutional idea appears the inevitable consequence 
of another, we may not assume that it so appeared 
to seventeenth-century England. If we do other- 
wise, we shall fall into ludicrous mistakes. Pro- 
fessor Maitland has warned us that if we introduce 
the idea of the persona ficta into the heads of too 
early a generation of medieval lawyers, we shall 
blunder as badly as if we armed Hengist and Horsa 
with machine guns or pictured the Venerable Bede 
correcting proofs for the press. Accordingly, with 
this seventeenth-century "constitution," we may 
let its advocates tell us in their own words what 
they thought it ; and with this we must be content, 
however meager or contradictory our results appear. 

'^The Agreement can most easily be consulted in Gardiner, Consti- 
tutional Documents, p. 333. 



210 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

Beginning with the obvious, we may be sure that 
the Agreement was designed as a paramount law 
to limit Parliament. Thus it enumerated certain 
legislative powers as withheld by the people from 
Parliament. True, this "bill of rights" was the 
only part of the instrument specifically declared 
unalterable by Parliament; yet we are not assum- 
ing too much when we suppose that the Agree- 
ment's avowed aim, biennial parliamentary elec- 
tions, was also intended to be unalterable. Thus 
the provisions regarding the "negative voice" would 
have enforced themselves; for if one set of repre- 
sentatives had admitted a "negative voice" in king 
or Lords, the people might have chosen more faith- 
ful servants at the next election. Therefore the 
more important clauses of the Agreement recited a 
law unalterable by Parliament. 

The next question that naturally arises is of the 
manner of interpreting the paramount law defined 
by the Agreement. In practice, this power would 
have rested with the people. The Agreement di- 
rected them to proceed to new elections at stated 
times, without waiting for writ or warrant to legal- 
ize their work. Thus the people might have enun- 
ciated their interpretation; by exacting pledges of 
the representatives elected, they might also have 
enforced it. 

When we seek after the method by which the 
nation was to indorse and adopt the Agreement 
we are on less sure ground. A certain soldier who 
goes in the report of the army-council debates by 
the name of "Bedfordshire Man" spoke of acting 



FIRST AGREEMENT OF THE PEOPLE 211 

for the people's good by petitioning or otherwise 
"wherby the fundamentalls for a well-ordered Gov- 
ernement for the people's Rights may bee estab- 
lished."" Cromwell at one turn of debate ad- 
vanced the supposition that the supporters of the 
Agreement intended to put it into effect by getting 
"hands to itt;"^* a remark of Rainsborough's may 
possibly be taken as an indication that numbers of 
civilians had already subscribed the paper. Cer- 
tainly it had been circulated for signatures in the 
army.^^ While the framers of the Agreement re- 
garded their constitution as an emanation from 
the people at large, they had no clear concept of 
the manner in which the people were to approve 
or disapprove it. 

Cromwell at once fastened on this weakness and 
repeatedly recurred to It in the army-council de- 
bate. He urged the difficulty of getting the people 
to accept the Agreement's provisions at all; and 
he insisted that it be referred for approval to Par- 
liament as the duly constituted authority of the 
nation. ^^ Otherwise, he said, the army ignored 
the power that had created it, and thereby dis- 
avowed Its own legal status. Evidently he would 
not willingly have seen the Agreement established 
by revolution. The Agreement's defenders could 
not reply to him by specifying a procedure through 
which the nation might formally adopt its new 

" Clarke Papers, I, 252. 
^*Ibid., p. 237. 
15 Ibid., pp. 291-293. 
"/6j</.,pp. 237, 369. 



212 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

constitution. Therefore Cromwell and Ireton per- 
sisted in ignoring the Agreement's theoretical claims 
to consideration as a potential constitution for the 
English nation; instead, they treated it as the 
creed of a minority party. 

In several respects the Agreement of the People 
represented to its proposers something narrower 
than a national constitution. It was not a com- 
plete description of government; it specifically de- 
clared that the power of constituting such governors 
and courts as the people required rested with the 
Parliament. Parliament, limited only by the few 
restrictions contained in the Agreement, was to 
write the real constitution of the kingdom in statute 
law." 

Moreover, the provision that the Long Parlia- 
ment should not adjourn for a full year is signifi- 
cant. Apparently those who drew up the Agree- 
ment thought there was a better chance of securing 
desirable legislation from the Long Parliament than 
from the "people's representatives." Seen in this 
light the Agreement appears merely a device for 
protecting certain parts of the work of the Long 
Parliament, and especially its work of oblivion, 
from the destroying hand of some later Parliament 
which might wish to mete out vengeance to either 
Independent or New Model soldier. John Wild- 
man, a young barrister who defended the Agree- 
ment in the Army Council, said of it: 

'^ To be specific, the question of the retention of the king and Lords 
as constitutional figureheads might well be one that in this connection 
might engage the attention of the people's representatives. 



FIRST AGREEMENT OF THE PEOPLE 213 

this paper doth lay downe the foundations of freedome for 
all manner of people. Itt doth lay the foundations of soul- 
diers [freedom], wheras they found a great uncertainty in the 
proposalls: that they should goe to the Kinge for an act of 
indempnity, and thus the Kinge might command his Judges 
to hange them uppe for what they did in the warres; because 
the present Constitution being left as itt was, nothing was law 
butt what the Kinge sign'd, and nott any ordnance of 
ParHament. And considering this, they thought itt should 
bee by an Agreement with the people, wherby a rule betweene 
the Parliament and the people might bee sett, that soe they 
might bee destroyed neither by the Kinge's Prerogative, nor 

Parliament's priviledges They thought there 

must bee a necessity of a rule betweene the Parliament and 
the people, soe that the Parliament should know what they 
were intrusted to, and what they were nott; and that there 
might bee no doubt of the Parliament's power to lay founda- 
tions for future quarrells. The Parliament shall nott meddle 
with a souldier after indempnity. Itt is agreed amongst 
the people, wheras betweene a Parliament and Kinge — if the 
Kinge were nott under restraint — should make an Act of 
Indempnity — wheras another Parliament cannott alter this.^* 

Furthermore, we are not sure that the Agreement 
was intended to bind persons who did not assent 
to it. Cromwell suggested that every county in 
the kingdom might assume the liberty to establish 
its own agreement. Further, the trend of an army- 
council debate of November 2 seems to imply that 
the peers thenceforth, though deprived of a nega- 
tive voice, should be bound only by legislation to 

18 Clarke Papers, I, 354. Clarke's notes are confused here, but the 
meaning is apparent enough. King and Parliament can alter an ordi- 
nary act of indemnity, but not an Agreement of the People. 

John Wildman was a young man with some legal training and con- 
siderable natural aptitude as a debater. As a civilian spokesman for the 
agents in the Council of the Army he was in 1647 just entering on a career 
of political agitation that was to extend over well-nigh half a century. 



214 TEE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

which they themselves had given their assent. ^^ 
Men were not quite sure how far one may be bound 
by a law to which one has not assented either 
immediately or by a representative. 

Moreover, a few of the radicals who took part 
in the army debates regarded the Agreement as a 
bestowal of certain immunities or liberties — using 
the terms in their older sense — on certain favored 
individuals. Since the Agreement implied the right 
of each individual to the liberty of choosing the 
men who were to make the laws that should govern 
him, it was possible to reason that this liberty 
should belong only to men whose actions had proved 
their desire for it — perhaps only to men who had 
put forth efforts to obtain it. One of the soldiers 
who presented the Agreement of the People to the 
Council of the Army said: "I thinke itt will bee 
strange that wee that are souldiers cannott have 
them [for] our selves, if nott for the whole Kinge- 
dome . . . ."2° Later Agreements specifically 
confined their benefits to those who had given them 
formal assent. In the amended Agreement of the 
People that was debated October 30 in committee, 
a clause provided that the House of Commons 
then in session determine the proper extension of 
the franchise; the clause suggested an extension 
to include those who had served in the war and 
had contributed to the Parliament's support. ^'^ 

The foregoing discussion should have proved the 

13 Clarke Papers, I, 405. 
20 Ibid., p. 236. 
"7izW., p. 366. 



FIRST AGREEMENT OF THE PEOPLE 215 

complexity of the idea that the Agreement of the 
People connoted to its framers. We must admit 
that to them the Agreement implied a measure of 
special privilege. We must also admit that both 
in its provisions and its essence, the document was 
the product of the soldiers' desire to provide for 
their own safety by coming to terms with the 
people. But in spite of all this, the central idea 
of the Agreement was the people's control of their 
government by a paramount law originating in 
themselves. 

III. THE ARMY-COUNCIL DEBATES OF NOVEMBER, 

1647 

When the friends of the Agreement argued for 
it as an embodiment of the nation's liberties, their 
opponents challenged them to demonstrate two 
points: the nation's right to these liberties, and its 
right also to take measures to secure them. In 
general the radicals demanded them as belonging 
to the people by natural right, and demonstrated 
the people's right to take them by the fact that a 
five years' war had been carried on avowedly for 
their recovery. The Leveller agents were prone 
to dogmatize on the subject of their natural rights. 
They refused to let their opponents cite chronicles 
in rebuttal, because chronicles had in all ages been 
written in the interest of those who had kept 
England in bondage. -^ They saw yawning behind 
them the Norman conquest, not as Ireton saw it, 

" Oarhe Papers, I, 318; Wildman. 



216 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

a struggle between Harold and William as to which 
one was of right king of the English, ^3 but an 
abstract Norman conquest that had swallowed up 
the nation and its liberties; a Norman conquest 
not passed away six centuries before, but a Norman 
conquest out of which they themselves had climbed 
in the past few years, setting their feet at Marston 
Moor and Naseby. Were they to fall back into 
the abyss, or were they to be permitted to estab- 
lish their footing and that of all Englishmen on 
their natural rights? They were very tender of 
this conception of the Norman conquest, deduced 
partly from their belief in the natural rights of 
man and partly from their own evil experience of 
oppression in earlier days.^* 

The tenacity with which they insisted on these 
natural rights and on a settlement that would secure 
them excited the wonder of Cromwell. All govern- 
ments were, he said, but as dross and dung in 
comparison with Christ, "and why wee shall soe 
farre contest for temporall thinges, that if wee can- 
nott have this freedome wee will venture life and 
livelihood for itt. When every man shall come to 
this condition I thinke the State will come to 
desolation. "2^ 

Here, to digress for a moment, was precisely the 
difference between Cromwell and the Saints on the 



*^ Clarke Papers, 1,401. 

^ Ibid., pp. 316 ff. A further example is afforded by Cowling, p. 368; 
but he believed that there had been vassalage in England before the 
Conquest. 

^Ibid., p. 370, Nov. 1, 1647. 



FIRST AGREEMENT OF THE PEOPLE 217 

one hand, and the Levellers on the other. Men like 
Goffe, and to a lesser extent Cromwell, were always 
awaiting a divine command. They sought it in 
extraordinary ways ; from special providences, from 
words that a comrade spoke professing to have 
them from God's spirit. Cromwell, less inclined 
than others to have faith in guidance of the latter 
sort, always reserved to himself the right to judge 
by the effect made on his own spirit by words 
spoken as from God, and rather sought the direct- 
ing hand of God in material happenings and the 
turn of political events. ^^ Seeking divine guidance 
in politics in this simple fashion was a thing com- 
pletely foreign to men like Lilburne, Overton, 
Walwyn, and Wildman. Their aims were frankly 
secular, for they were convinced that the one thing 
needful was a just political settlement. They felt 
that the spiritual freedom that Cromwell craved 
could follow only in the train of a political freedom 
secured by law. Naturally, therefore, they gov- 
erned their political conduct by their political 
philosophy. Like other men they could see in 
outward happenings evidence of divine approval of 
their work; but for guidance they ever looked to 
their principles and not to passing events. When 
contrasted in this respect with Cromwell and the 
Saints they are strangely modern. In debate in 
the Council of the Army, Wildman dismissed an- 
nouncements by mystics of the will of God in much 
the same way that a pious man in political council 
might today. They would best follow God's will, 

" See the Clarke Papers, I, 3<37-37S, Nov. 1, 1647. 



218 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

he said, if they considered what things had justice 
and mercy in them, and set about doing them. 
"If itt please this honourable Councill to consider 
what is justice and what is mercy, and what is 
good, and I cannott butt conclude that that is 
of God. Otherwise I cannott thinke that any one 
doth speake from God when hee sayes what hee 
speakes is of God."'^' 

Dismissing for the time the mental distinction 
between Saints and Levellers, it may be well to re- 
call the proposition stated at the head of this section ; 
a logical demonstration of the Agreement as an 
attempt on the part of the people to recover their 
natural rights lost in the Norman conquest de- 
manded the establishment of two premises — first, 
that the natural rights of the people had ever 
existed, or had been such as the Levellers thought 
them, and, second, that the people had the right to 
recover their lost rights by altering the political 
constitution of the kingdom. 

Commissary-General Ireton led the debate on the 
Agreement of the People in the Army Council (Octo- 
ber 28-November 8), traversing with great acute- 
ness and great bitterness the two positions named 
above. He put the Levellers on the defensive 
almost immediately; and the debate thereafter 
centered around his own constitutional theories. 
The argument began with a question from Ireton 
as to whether the Agreement implied manhood 
suffrage. He was answered that the supporters of 
the Agreement demanded the franchise on grounds 

" Clarke Papers, I, 384, Nov. 1, 16i7. 



FIRST AGREEMENT OF THE PEOPLE 219 

of natural right. It was against nature for a man 
to be bound by laws which he had not had a voice 
in choosing ; against nature that his God-given rea- 
son be denied the opportunity to preserve him from 
danger by guiding him through his representatives 
in his choice of laws. Thereupon Ireton developed 
his theory of the English constitution, namely, that 
it was intended to secure property. To that end 
it had limited the suffrage to those who had a fixed 
stake in the kingdom. Once extend this franchise 
to all men on the ground that by nature they had a 
right to it, as necessary to their liberties, and all 
property was gone; for it could be argued on the 
same ground that by nature any man had a right 
to any property that he needed for his support. ^^ 
When the supporters of the Agreement inquired 
bitterly after the rights for which the common 
soldier without property rights had adventured 
his life, 29 Ireton coolly answered that the common 
soldier had done it that he might live, not under a 
tyrannical and capricious ruler, but under a gov- 
ernment controlled by those with a property stake 
in the kingdom, and by the fixed and certain laws 
that their representatives would pro vide. ■■'° 

The radicals, feeling instinctively that political 
democracy does not imply communism, stumbled 
after the fallacy that they knew must lie hidden in 
Ireton's argument. Rainsborough urged first that 
the law of God, "Thou shalt not steal," protected 

28 Clarke Papers, I, 299-308, 311. 

^nbid., pp. 323 (Sexby), 325 (Rainsborough). 

"o/^jt/., pp. 326-327. 



220 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

property. Ireton replied that the law of God laid 
down only a general principle ; the law of the land 
defined what property consisted in, and was the 
actual safeguard. For that matter, he said, how 
did the law of God support property more immedi- 
ately than it supported the vested right of a few men 
to the exclusive choice of members of Parliament P-**^ 

The Levellers fared better in attacking on the 
practical side Ireton's theory as to the inevitable 
union of property and political power. Rains- 
borough saw that in practice Ireton's system made 
the franchise a sort of property. "As for estates, 
and those kinde of thinges, and other thinges that 
belonge to men, " he said, "itt will bee granted that 
they are propertie ; butt I deny that that [the fran- 
chise] is a propertie to a Lord, to a Gentleman, to 
any man more then another in the Kingdome of 
England." Pettus, one of the agents, laid his 
finger on the weak point of Ireton's insistence that 
a constitutional change must imply the alteration 
of property institutions. It would be very danger- 
ous, he said, if arguments of this sort were to coerce 
men into keeping one form of government to all 
eternity. '2 

The essential conservatism of Ireton becomes 
apparent in other of his opinions. He had in com- 
mon with Selden the lawyer-like notion that the 
whole existing structure of society was built upon 
compacts between man and man sanctioning all 
social, economic, and political relations. To his 

" Clarke Papers, I, 309-310. 
^Ubid., pp. 311, 336. 



FIRST AGREEMENT OF THE PEOPLE 221 

mind, the power of the English nation to reconstruct 
itself on principles of natural right was limited 
by the implied governmental contracts which the 
English nation through its forefathers had made 
with Lords and king. If Lords and king could 
show a legal warrant for their negative voices, the 
nation must not disregard it. The whole political 
and social structure depended on the keeping of 
contracts — these implied contracts with king and 
Lords as well as the more specific contracts relating 
to property. To show that a given contract was 
unjust and noxious made as little difference in one 
class as in the other. "What right hath any man 
to any thinge if you lay nott that principle, that wee 
are to keepe covenant? If you will resort onely 
to the law of Nature, by the law of Nature you 
have noe more right to this land or any thinge else 
then I have." To appeal in one case to natural 
rights and natural law against recorded law was 
sufficient to overthrow the whole structure of so- 
ciety.^* Like the Levellers, Ireton desired the 
supremacy of law. The Levellers, however, de- 
sired it as an expedient whereby the people might 
bind their government by rules of justice. To 
Ireton, it was valuable as securing the permanence 
of the existing social order, and depended for its 

'* Ibid., pp. 263, 322, 336. It is true Ireton admitted that there were 
certain arguments against the king's veto of a kind he could approve. 
He was surprised that Parliament had never cited as a precedent the 
article against Richard II that (so Ireton said) accused him of failing to 
assent to the good laws his subjects had proposed to him. Ibid., p. 402. 
As for natural law, Ireton regarded it as safeguarding men's persons, 
but not their property. 



222 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

Stability on the control of the government by the 
classes interested in the perpetuation of that order. 

Ireton's political theories, while abreast of the 
liberal thought of his own day, were all in all 
more conservative than those of Hunton or Parker. 
From the democratic viewpoint of today, Ireton 
seems almost naively antiquated. He serenely ad- 
vocated class government. He calmly framed argu- 
ments that would condemn a nation to hold forever 
to a constitution it had outgrown rather than disturb 
in any particular the established order. He could 
not see that the right of men to a voice in their gov- 
ernment was not bound up with the overthrow of 
property, or that the struggle to reach abstract 
justice in the constitution of the government need 
not imply the introduction of communism. His 
thinking was distinctly of the past as the thinking 
of the Levellers was the thinking of the future. 

Ireton had the best of the army-council debates 
as a conservative usually has the best of a logical 
combat with a radical. His ideas had the maturity 
given them by generations of close thinking, and 
were therefore exactly stated and linked into or- 
derly sequence. The radicals of the army were 
groping on the verge of new ideas that were as yet 
less logical than intuitive. Universal franchise and 
democratic government seemed innately just to 
them; therefore they declared that these rights 
antedated government itself. Ireton easily non- 
plussed the radicals by suggesting that if some of 
the conditions that preceded society were to be 
renewed, disorder and absence of property might 



FIRST AGREEMENT OF THE PEOPLE 223 

return also. The Levellers had not sufficiently 
visualized their state of nature to be able to give a 
clear answer. 

Yet undoubtedly they had at their command a 
logical reply if they could have formulated it. As 
it was, they told Ireton that democratic govern- 
ment had originally been established in a state of 
nature for the purpose of protecting property. 
Overton had previously based the sanctity of prop- 
erty on the rights of the individual. In the present 
case he might have argued that the right to the 
peaceable enjoyment of one's possessions, like self- 
government and liberty of conscience, was guaran- 
teed by the law of nature and inalienable. Thus a 
return to one ordinance of the law of nature — 
perfect political equality — would be the reverse of 
destroying property. ^^ 

The arguments and theories of the Levellers 
were fragmentary and vague because their ideas 
were new. The uncertainty of their thinking ap- 
pears in their vague idea of a state of nature and of 
natural rights. It appears also in their explana- 
tions of the Agreement of the People. Its framers 
were not sure whether they were drawing up an en- 
tente between the rank and file of the army and the 
rank and file of the nation, or whether they were de- 
vising a scheme by which the people might control 
their government by law. But in the future course 
of events, the second idea prevailed and expanded; 
accordingly the Levellers have an important place 
in the history of constitutional thought. 

^Clarke Papers, I, 312-313 (Pettus); 330, 338-339 (Clarke). 



224 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

IV. THE OUTCOME OF THE FIRST AGREEMENT 

The remainder of the story of the First Agree- 
ment of the People is soon told. In the debates in 
the Council of the Army, October 29-November 8, 
the Levellers seemed to have their own way ; they 
carried the proposition for the universal franchise 
on which Ireton had centered his opposition. No- 
vember 5, they secured a call for a rendezvous of 
the whole army, probably intending to secure the 
assent of the whole rank and file to the Agreem^ent. 
Cromwell, alarmed by the danger to discipline, and 
shocked by the bitterness toward the king's person 
which passing events tended to increase in the Army 
Council, made a supreme effort November 8. He 
branded the proposal for the universal franchise 
as anarchy, and carried a vote dismissing officers 
and agitators alike to their regiments. The ren- 
dezvous for the army was held on three different 
days, beginning with the fifteenth. When it came 
to the test, the Levellers could not hold the soldiery 
in line for the Agreement. In vain they issued a 
letter, November 12, urging the men to beware of 
the army chiefs and their fair offers of pay and 
arrears. The Agreement was too fine spun, no 
doubt, for the soldiers' understanding; and when 
Fairfax proposed in its place a new engagement by 
which they were to agree to obey his orders under 
the understanding that he would urge Parliament to 
dissolve speedily and to adopt measures that would 
for the future make the Commons more truly rep- 
resentative, the men accepted it eagerly. At the 



FIRST AGREEMENT OF THE PEOPLE 225 

first rendezvous, two regiments appeared on the 
field at Corkbush, contrary to orders; the men of 
one had the Agreement of the People with the 
additional words "Englands Freedoms Sol iers 
Rights" stuck in their hats; but a few threatening 
words from Cromwell availed against the attempt 
of officers who sympathized with the Levellers to 
make the men stand firm. Of these officers, Ayres 
and Bray were arrested; Arnold, a private in Col- 
onel Robert Lilburne's regiment, was shot for his 
part in the mutiny; and discipline was restored in 
the army. 

John Lilburne, who at the time was allowed to 
be much at large from the Tower, had come out of 
London as far as Ware to await news of what 
passed at the rendezvous; but hearing of the dis- 
comfiture of the Levellers, he returned as he had 
come. A somewhat fanciful account with which 
Mercurius Pragmaticus dismissed the event is worth 
quoting for its exquisitely good-natured malice if 
for no other reason.*^ 

London Agents appeared to the Army at the Rendezvous, and 
scar'd them heyon [beyondl their Orders; These Agents were 
no other but Agent Overton, Agent Lilburne, and the very 
same Agents that conspir'd the death of the King: The 
agreement of the people of the Spittle-Congregation was 
sent thither for the Souldiers to weare in their hatts, a pritty 
device to distinguish the Righteous from the Wicked; but 

^ Mercurius Pragmaticus, Nov. 16-22. See also A Full Relation Of 
The Proceedings at the Rendezvous of that Brigade of the Army that was 
held in Corkbush field, Nov. 16, 1647, E. 414 (13); A Remonstrance From 
His Excellency .... Concerning The late discontent, Nov. 16, 
1647, E. 414 (14). 



226 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

the intention was for another end; brother Box and Brother 
Overton knowes well enough to what end to divide the Sheepe 
from the Goates .... John Lilburne was to be Crown'd 
King of Ware; and then by those papers he might know his 
Subjects from King Toms; this was the Sea coale of the 
businesse: but wise John staying at Ware (bigge with expec- 
tation of the successe) had news brought him, That three of 
his people were condemned by a Counsell of Warre to bee 
hang'd, and one shot to death, and Englands Freedome, and 
Souldiers Rights knockt off of their Cox combes: John hear- 
ing of this, cry'd out Treason, Treason, give me my Horse, 
which was no sooner brought him, but he mounted his 
Palfrey, and rid like any Beggar a Horseback, till he came 
to his Court at Bedlam, where with a heavy heart, he told 
Queen Besse, That the Whore of Babbylon was in the Head- 
quarters, and that Sir Thomas was a Tyrant and a Traytor 
to the people; and so went to bed supperlesse with a heavy 
heart. 

NOTES 

I. The Heads op Proposaxs and the Radical Platform. 

The specific reforms outlined in the Heads of Proposals may be briefly 
contrasted with Overton's suggested reforms in An Appeale. The 
Proposals stipulated biennial parliamentary elections, limited to eight 
months the duration of each Parliament, and forbade a royal dissolution 
before four months of the session had passed. Of course the Heads 
dealt with the militia, the appointment of the great dignitaries of the 
kingdom, etc., as every treaty agendum since 1642 had done. Further, 
they vindicated the right of commoners to be tried by commoners. 
There was to be a reapportionment of seats on the basis of rates paid by 
the various counties. Members were to have liberty to "enter dissents, " 
and hence power to record their votes on crucial matters, in a way that 
had hitherto been impossible in the House of Commons. In the coun- 
ties men might indirectly choose justices of the peace and sheriffs. 
The Heads of Proposals further demanded the abohtion of all ex officio 
oaths and proceedings; reUef from imprisonment for debt in the case of 
debtors who surrendered their estates; law reform— though mentioned 
in vague terms — a remedy for the "unequal troublesome and conten- 
tious way" of maintaining ministers by tithes; removal of monopolies; 
the taking off of the excise on necessaries; vindication of the right of peti- 
tion; repeal of all orders forcing the taking of the Covenant — an impo- 



FIRST AGREEMENT OF THE PEOPLE 227 

sition that Lilbume had protested against in Rash Oaths umvarranlahle 
(pp. 8 ff.); repeal of acts forcing the use of the Book of Common Prayer; 
"An Act to be passed to take away all coercive Power, Authority, and 
Jurisdiction of Bishops and all other Ecclesiastical Officers whatsoever, 
extending to Civil Penalties upon any; and to repeal all Laws whereby 
the Civil Magistracy hath been or is bound upon any Ecclesiastical 
Censure to proceed (ex officio) unto any Civil Penalties against any 
Persons so censured." 

Overton's proposals concerning Parliament have been already quoted 
above (p. 196). Further, according to his scheme every county was to 
have liberty to inquire as to its customs by commissioners of its own 
choice, and to bring to trial its members in Parliament on any impeach- 
ments laid against them for betrayal of trust. Should a member be 
convicted, a new one was to be chosen. All courts not warranted by the 
old just law of the land were to be abolished. No new ones were to be 
imposed on the people contrary to the law of the land by either the 
king or the Parliament. There were to be courts in every hundred 
competent to deal with all civil and criminal cases. Such officers as by 
the ancient laws of the kingdom should be chosen by the people, were 
so to be chosen. The jails were to be thoroughly reformed. Prisoners 
were to be lodged at the expense of the state. All laws were to be in 
English; ex officio oaths, and statutes compelling men to attend the read- 
ing of the Prayer Book were to be abrogated. In all things all men were 
to be equal before the law. Imprisonment for debt was to be abolished; 
theft was no longer to be punishable by death. The limitations that the 
monopolies imposed on trade were to be summarily ended. Tithes 
were to be abolished; ancient grants for free schools were to be restored, 
and schools were to be erected at the public expense in the counties 
destitute of them, "that few or none of the free men of England may 
for the future be ignorant of reading and writing." Glebe lands were 
to be converted to the use of the infirm and the old, and of widows and 
orphans; old inclosed commons were to be laid open. 

II. Deb.\te in the Council of the Army on the Agreemext of 
THE People. 

Sexby's speech at the opening of the debate in the Council of the Army 
on the Agreement of the People probably represents the spirit that 
prompted the framing of the Agreement. ' ' The Kingdomes cause requires 
expedition, and truly our miseries with [those ofj our fellow souldiers cry 
out for present helpe. I thinke, att this time, this is your businesse, and 
I thinke itt is in all your hearts to releive the one and satisfie the other. 



228 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

You resolv'd if any thinge [reasonable] should bee propounded to you, 
you would joyne and goe alonge with us. 

"The cause of our misery [is] uppon two thinges. We sought to satisfie 
all men, and itt was well; butt in going [about] to doe itt wee have dis- 
satisfied all men. We have labour'd to please a Kinge, and I thinke, 
except wee goe about to cutt all our throates, wee shall nott please 
him; and wee have gone to support an house which wiU prove rotten 
studds, I meane the Parliament which consists of a Company of rotten 
Members." Clarke Papers, I, 227. 

Cowling said: "I shall onely offer this, the necessity of expedition if 
the people shall consider the necessities that they and we are in. Wee live 

now uppon free-quarter, and wee have that against our wills 

I have seene this paper, and uppon second reading of itt I sett my hand 
to itt, that wee may nott lie as drones to devoure their families . . . ." 
Clarke Papers, I, 293. 

Sir Hardresse Waller said in the same debate: "This paper sayes, 
that this Parliament is to continue a yeare, butt will the great burthen 
of the people be ever satisfied with papers [whilst] you eate and feede 
uppon them? I shall be glad, that [if] there bee nott any present danger, 
you will thinke of some way to ease the burthen that wee may take a 
course [to do it]; and when wee have satisfied the people that wee doe 
really intend the good of the Kingdome [they will beUeve us] — Otherwise 
if the four Evangelists were heere and lay free quarter uppon them, they 
will not believe you." Clarke Papers, I, 345. Although Waller was 
skeptical of the Agreement's power to reconcile to the army a nation 
estranged by free quarter, he realized the need of such a reconciliation. 

The Case Of The Armie contained the usual proposals for the social 
betterment of the kingdom; they included immediate removal of all 
such excises as bore on the poor, and the speedy abolition of ex- 
cises; faithful auditing of accounts throughout the kingdom; removal 
of monopolies; relief of prisoners for debt; repeal of the statutes for 
reading common prayer, and of the ordinance against conventicles; 
abolition of tithes and of the oath of supremacy; vindication of the 
freedom of Englishmen from ex officio oaths; law reform and the estab- 
lishment of county and hundred courts; restoration of embezzled alms- 
houses; as well as a new proposal that the freemen of London should 
be empowered to demand an accounting from the corporation, and from 
the halls of the city companies. Pp. 16-19. 



CHAPTER VII 

The Organization of the Leveller Party: 
THE Appeal to Reason 

I. THE development OF THE LEVELLER PARTY 
ORGANIZATION 

THE events of November 15 only checked for 
the moment the development of the Leveller 
party. Within two months a chance event revealed 
the existence of a democratic party organization, 
used in a supreme effort to establish Leveller prin- 
ciples by means of an appeal to the reason of the 
nation. This movement failed because its demo- 
cratic character enabled the authorities to detect it 
before it was well begun. But the means they em- 
ployed to suppress it brought Lilburne to devise a 
new constitutional check on Parliament — the doc- 
trine of the separation of the powers of government. 
In November the Levellers took no overt part 
in politics except for a few protests against the con- 
duct of the army leaders. November 23, five men 
addressed a petition to the House of Commons, 
naming it the "Supreme Authority," and asking 
for justice on the officers for their offense in impris- 
oning the soldiers concerned in the Agreement and 
executing Arnold. This only procured the com- 
mitment of the five, and supplied the news basis 
for an ' ' extra ' ' whose scarehead promised a ' ' Bloody 
Independent Plot .... to Murder the King, 

229 



230 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

Divide the Army, Levell the Nobility and Gentry, 
AboHsh the Protestant ReUgion."^ 

Lilburne contributed his share to the protests 
against the arbitrary conduct of the army chiefs. 
He pubHshed petitions from WiUiam Thompson, 
John Crosseman, and John Ingram, in which they 
protested against being held and judged by martial 
law in time of peace. For, so Thompson argued, as 
the House of Commons had no right to take away a 
man's life arbitrarily in time of peace, it could dele- 
gate no such power to Sir Thomas Fairfax. Very 
likely Lilburne himself was the author of Thomp- 
son's petition at least, for he uses its line of rea- 
soning elsewhere. 

He further developed an elaborate argument 
against the power of officers of the New Model to 
punish their men by courts martial. The military 
authority of the officers, he said, had ended when the 
army took the Solemn Engagement; thenceforth 
officers and men continued in arms for no other 
purpose than securing the rights of the kingdom, 
and lived under a new form of government set over 
the army by an Agreement. The fact that the 
Council of the Army, the visible form of this govern- 
ment, was contrary to all rules of military disci- 
pline proved that military discipline in the ordinary 
usage was at an end.^ The argument seems valid. 

1 Commons Journal, V, 367. The petition is in 669, f. 11 (98). The 
scarehead is in E. 419 (2). The five men concerned were Prince, Chidley, 
Larner, Taylor, and Ives. 

- The book mentioned in the paragraph above is The peoples Preroga- 
tive ajid PrivUedges, asserted and vhidicated, Feb. 14, 1647/8, E. 427 (4), 
pp. 42-55. 

William Thompson was a soldier of Whalley's regiment, who in August 



ORGANIZATION OF THE LEVELLER PARTY 231 

The officers of the army were indeed acting in a 
double role when they undertook, now to determine 
the policy of the army in council with representa- 
tives of the enlisted men, now to retain the men in 
strict military obedience. In this as in many things 
their only excuse was the iron law of necessity. 

The persecution of the army Levellers ended at 
Windsor, December 21-23, ii^ ^ general peace- 
making and oblivion among the officers. The dif- 
ferences between Leveller and Grandee were washed 
away in a flood of prayers and tears. The men 
from the agents' faction imprisoned by the army 
were set at liberty and forgiven.' Lilbume looked 
with suspicion on these proceedings; mystic as he 
was he was always skeptical of too great intrusions 
of religious enthusiasm into politics. Accordingly 
he served notice on the Grandees that unless thence- 
forth they showed themselves seriously intent on 

of 1647 had got into a brawl in an inn in Colebrook and had made a 
charge of theft against the inn-keeper that he later admitted was incor- 
rect. He was cashiered September 14, 1647, by sentence of a council 
of war, but was allowed to remain with his troop after sentence had 
been pronounced. His attempt to stir up the men of another regiment 
for the Agreement of the People led to his arrest a second time. On 
this occasion he was given leave to go to London on urgent private 
business. There he again betook himself to agitation and in February 
was taken under arrest once more by Cromwell's own orders. So far 
the accounts of Thompson and the authorities agree. As Thompson 
claimed, he was now carried before a council of war and sentenced to 
death for refusing to admit its authority. By his own admissions Thomp- 
son was a desperate man of bad habits; but his arrest under martial 
law after being cashiered was undoubtedly dangerous to civil liberty. 
A True and Impartial Relation .... concerning the proceedings 
of several Councels of War, Mar. 20, 1647/8, E. 432 (23); A Vindication 
Of Lieut. Gen. Cromwell, And Com. Gen. Ireton,'Ma.r. 7, 1647/8, E. 431 (7). 
' Clarke Papers, I, Ivii. 



232 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

securing the just liberties of Englishmen, they might 
still count on his opposition.^ 

The prisoners did not take all the attention of the 
Levellers. During the autumn of 1647 we can begin 
to trace in the city of London and in the surround- 
ing counties the existence of a definite political 
organization that we may call the Leveller party. 
Simultaneously with the October army councils, 
certain men whom the speech of the day termed 
"London Agents" were taking counsel together in 
the city. Wildman was undoubtedly the inter- 
mediary between these men and the agents of the 
army ; moreover, if we may believe Mercurius Prag- 
maticus, Lilburne controlled the army agents. In 
fact, meetings of army agents at which Lilburne 
and Overton were present were held during Novem- 
ber at the Mouth in Aldersgate, and at the Windmill 
in Coleman Street.^ The meetings soon were 
called to the attention of Parliament; and on No- 
vember 20 Lords and Commons completed the 
organization of a joint committee to inquire into 
the doings of the "London Agents." That same 
week letters from Nottinghamshire advised Parlia- 
ment that the people there were being stirred up to 

* The peoples Prerogative, pp. 55-58. 

Sir John Berkeley's narrative would lead one to infer that Cromwell's 
penitence for Corkbush Field dated back to November at least. Ma- 
seres, Tracts, I, 385. See Note I on p. 254. 

s Pragmaticus, Sept. 28-Oct. 6; Nov. 9-16, 17-24. An attempt in the 
House of Commons to incriminate Marten as attending the meetings 
of this organization and being responsible for its actions, led him to the 
defiant retort that if the agents stood at that very moment at the House 
door, he presently would go out and advise with them. Elenctkus, 
Nov. 12-19; Perfect Weekly Account, Nov. 10-17. 



ORGANIZATION OF THE LEVELLER PARTY 233 

subscribe the Agreement, and to send their sub- 
scriptions up to the Saracen's Head tavern in Lon- 
don. In December, Rutlandshire ministers com- 
plained that a certain Anabaptist preacher lately 
come into that part of the country was securing 
signatures to the Agreement of the People.^ 

Late in 1647 the Levellers temporarily aban- 
doned the Agreement of the People and the as- 
sumption that Parliament had no legal authority, 
and busied themselves with a new petition. It urged 
the House of Commons to free itself from the ham- 
pering veto of king and Lords, and establish the 
people's freedom. The petition carried the usual 
list of specific reforms, omitting mention of any 
that might tend to divide rather than unite the 
nation. Thus, in the hope of promoting a general 
agreement among the people, it did not touch tithes 
or other "contentious" subjects.^ 

The framers of the petition devised a careful 
organization to promote it. They appointed ten 
or twelve commissioners whose duty it was to ad- 
vance the petition by agents throughout the king- 
dom. These commissioners met three days of the 

* Commons Journal, V, 363-365; Lords Journal, IK, 529 (Nov. 17 j, 
571 (Dec. 11). 

^ Wildman, Truths triumph, Or Treachery anatomized, Feb. 1, 1647/8, 
E. 520 (33), p. 4. The Leveller leaders found difficulty in persuading 
some of their followers that petitioning Parliament again was worth the 
trouble. A Declaration Of some Proceedings, Feb. 14, 1647/8, E. 427 (6). 
This pamphlet contains the petition in question. Lilbume said a year 
later that he had hoped for a hundred thousand signatures. A n Impeach- 
ment Of High Treason Against Oliver Cromwell, Aug. 10, 1649, E. 568 (20), 
p. 22. Thirty thousand petitions were to be printed. A Declaration 
Of some Proceedings, p. 17. 



234 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

week in London, and other three in Southwark and 
elsewhere to consult with their friends regarding the 
promotion of the petition. The funds necessary 
for expenses were raised by voluntary contributions 
ranging from two pence to half a crown a week. 

The Leveller leaders consciously attempted to 
build up local party organization throughout the 
kingdom. In the several wards of London and in the 
out-parishes, they formed committees of interested 
persons, to appoint fit men to read the petition and 
solicit subscriptions at set meetings. To the out- 
lying counties into which the propaganda was to be 
spread, notably Kent, Buckingham, Oxford, Cam- 
bridge, Rutland, and Hertford, Lilburne suggested 
a similar method — meetings to choose proper men 
for carrying on the business in every town.* 

The Leveller party maintained an organization 
of this type for at least two years. In November 
of 1648, a meeting of Leveller agents in the city of 
London chose certain men to represent the party in 
council with the army leaders.^ An organization 
something like that described above was employed 
to promote the petition of September 11, 1648. 
Repeatedly in the course of 1649 the Levellers in 
various parts of the kingdom were urged to send up 
representatives to discuss with the London Level- 
lers policies for putting into effect a later Agreement 
of the People.^" Leveller meetings were probably 

^ A Declaration Of some Proceedings, pp. 13, 17; letters from Lilburne 
and Wildman quoted in the book. See Note II, p. 254. 
9 Infra, p. 263. 
^^ For instance, \n An Impeachment Of High Treason, p. 7. 



ORGANIZATION OF THE LEVELLER PARTY 235 

continued till the fall of 1649; and we find them 
mentioned in the winter of 1652.1^ Finally, from 
May of 1648 to September of 1649, a news-sheet, 
the Moderate, inculcated Leveller principles and 
gave news with a Leveller bias, so that it may fairly 
be called a Leveller party organ. ^^ The Leveller 
party was consciously an organized political party 
during the events of 1648 and 1649. 

But to return to the petition of the fall of 1647. 
Its supporters approached their work in a spirit 
that distinguished the later Leveller movement. 
At the time when the petition was framed, they said, 
a new war seemed to be imminent; but had seven 
years of a war ostensibly waged for liberty left any 
legacy of peace? Could not the new civil war, even 
then foreshadowed in the disillusionment and dis- 
content of the kingdom, be averted by setting all 
men to seek out and to inquire of each other after 
the chief principles of the freedom for which the 
old war had avowedly been waged? Surely, if once 
men could reach an understanding on these prin- 
ciples, no man could be so depraved as to seek to 
bring on a new war by failing to support them ; and 
the path of peace would lie open to England.^* 

This may be dismissed as day dreaming; but it 
was splendid day dreaming. To meet the people 
fairly, trying by reason to convince them of the 
excellence of the Leveller ideals instead of seeking 

" The French Intelligencer, Jan. 13-21, 1651/2. Infra, n. 12, p. 332. 
12 June 22-29, 1648 to Sept. 25, 1649. 

^^ Paraphrased from a letter of Lilbume and Wildman quoted in A 
Declaration Of some Proceedings. 



236 TEE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

to accustom them to Ideals righteous enough in 
themselves, but maintained only by the sword of 
the New Model — here in a word was the difference 
between the Cromwellian policy and the Leveller 
policy. Looking back, it is not difficult to see that 
the Cromwellian settlement must ever have been 
a settlement by the sword. It could never have 
risen higher than its source. To undertake to con- 
vince the people of England of the justice and ex- 
cellence of a settlement that had been maintained 
over them by the army was to undertake the im- 
possible. On the other hand, the chances were 
heavily against the success of a propaganda so 
advanced as that of the Levellers; nevertheless 
their scheme had the innate soundness of any demo- 
cratic political movement; the degree of its success 
would have measured the political capacity of the 
English people of its generation. At the least, the 
Leveller methods would have afforded England 
opportunity for a democratic expression of her real 
political beliefs, even though if expressed they 
probably would have proved to be Royalist. 

Tried by the abiding value of the political phi- 
losophies involved, the Leveller idea also had an 
advantage over the Cromwellian idea. The Lev- 
ellers had discovered that the sound foundation of 
the nation's government was to be sought by con- 
vincing the people of the excellence of certain politi- 
cal principles ; for the attainment of their ends, they 
relied on persuasion and argument, man to man; 
they entrusted their propaganda to a party locally 
organized on a democratic basis; and all these 



ORGANIZATION OF THE LEVELLER PARTY 237 

things were valuable contributions to the world's 
stock of political ideas and political experience. 

The seventeenth century could not allow men to 
proceed with such a scheme in peace. January 19, 
Lilburne and Wildman were summoned before the 
House of Commons on an information laid with the 
Lords the day before by one, George Masterson, 
who undertook to report the proceedings at a meet- 
ing in Wapping at which Lilburne and Wildman had 
been present. The sum of his testimony was that 
there had been words spoken against the Lords, and 
that the leaders of the meeting expected a serious 
riot against the Commons, should the House fail to 
receive the petition favorably. ^^ The Houses lis- 
tened to Masterson's accusation; above all they must 
have regarded as dangerous the very existence of the 
Leveller organization. In spite of Lilburne's and 
Wildman's bold answers to Masterson's charges, the 
House of Commons committed them to prison and 

^* A George Masterson, clerk, was a witness against the regicides in 
1660. The Levellers denounced the informer as a turncoat, saying that 
he had been Prelatist, Presbyterian, and Independent by turns. The 
tone of his own writings is not such as to discredit this estimate of him. 

According to Lilburne, the intention of the meeting was to induce 
the people who attended it to cling to the House of Commons as being 
the best and most legal authority left in the kingdom, and accordingly 
to promote the petition to the House. A n Impeachment Of High Treason, 
pp. 10 ff. 

Masterson's accusation was verbal, and he was not sworn. A Speech 
. . . . in the ... . House of Commons. By Sir lohn May- 
nard, Aug. 11, 1648, E. 458 (2), p. 6. Lilburne in answering the charges 
expressly stated he was not bound in any way to pay attention to a 
verbal charge. A Whip for the present House of Lords, Mar. 6, 1647/8. 
E. 431 (1), p. 9. 



238 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

referred them to the King's Bench for trial ;^^ but 
months of imprisonment apparently brought them 
no nearer a legal arraignment. 

John Lilburne's political and constitutional theo- 
ries always originated in concrete situations. He 
lacked the imagination or the inclination to produce 
an abstract theory or a complete system of political 
thought. But let him be the victim of a govern- 
mental procedure that seemed unjust in itself, and 
he at once evolved a constitutional theory to meet 
it; this theory he might alter or reverse when con- 
fronted with a different situation. 

His actions on this occasion afford a fair example 
of his intellectual habits. ^^ In pamphlets setting 
forth his demand on King's Bench for a writ of 
habeas corpus, he arrived at a doctrine of the sepa- 
ration of the powers of government. He perceived 

1* Commons Journal, V, 436-438. The two men refused to go to 
prison until a legal warrant was drawn for their commitment; with the 
backing of a hundred of their friends they made their refusal good and 
were respited until next morning. Then they presented themselves at 
Westminster; Lilbume, when the warrant was served on them, claimed 
that it was still illegal because the charge was stated in general terms. 
In his own words he " fell of preaching law and iustice out of Sir Edward 
Cookes institutes, (then in my hands) and the Parliaments own declara- 
tion to the Souldiers that guarded the House;" his exhortations were so 
efficacious that the guard refused to arrest him. However a new one 
was called, and Lilburne was not given time to convert it. He resisted 
arrest; a riot resulted, but of course an unsuccessful one; and after running 
danger of his life he was carried o2 to the Tower. A Whip for the present 
House of Lords, pp. 23 fi. The account in this is corroborated in Heads 
of Chief Passages in Parliament, Jan. 19-26. 

1' He had answered the questions put to him by the House of Com- 
mons with a salvo that, as the charge against him was not in writing, he 
was not legally bound to recognize it. A Whip for the present House of 
Lords, p. 9. Wildman made a similar plea. Truths triumph, p. 3. 



ORGANIZATION OF THE LEVELLER PARTY 239 

that if the House of Commons in time of peace was 
able to commit him after an informal hearing and 
to bar him from a legal trial, the House of Commons 
could destroy any man it saw fit. To Lilburne a 
situation such as this was intolerable, and he cast 
about for some constitutional principle that would 
meet the difficulty. He found his principle in the 
theory that lawmakers such as the members of the 
House of Commons should not also be law executors. ^^ 
While the House of Lords might enjoy the juris- 
diction of an appellate court, to Lilburne's mind the 
House of Commons had no legal warrant for exer- 
cising the functions of a court of original resort, or 
indeed any functions of a court. Assuredly neither 
one of the Houses had the right to imprison a prin- 
cipal in a case brought before them in first instance ; 
for their doing so would deprive the man they had 
imprisoned of the advantage of an appeal to the 
Lords as a court of last resort. 

Admitting all this, the question remained as to 
how such arbitrary actions of the House of Commons 
might be forestalled. Lilburne himself had on 
former occasions repeatedly declared that House the 
supreme power of the English nation; but he had 
always implied that Parliament was supreme only 
when it walked in accord with the fundamental 
laws of the kingdom. To check it when it passed 
those bounds, a student of Sir Edward Coke would 

" The doctrine appears in A Defiance to Tyrants, a plea that Lilburne 
had published December 2 against the proceedings of a parliamentary 
committee engaged in prosecuting the "London Agents." It appears 
in pp. 67 ff. of The peoples Prerogative. 



240 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

naturally turn to the common-law courts of the 
realm; for, since Parliament was supreme only when 
its actions accorded with the law, it could be checked 
when it transgressed by the application in any com- 
mon-law court of a common-law remedy, such as a 
habeas corpus. True, Lilburne in 1646 had de- 
nounced both Westminster courts and Westminster 
law as fruits of Norman tyranny. But he now 
appealed, not to the intricate quibbles of the com- 
mon law in civil cases, but to the few fundamental 
principles of personal liberty that it guaranteed; 
and he turned with relief from his "unsworn judges" 
of the House of Commons to men who had at least 
taken an oath to judge justly and according to law. 
In several letters written to the judges during the 
spring of 1648 Lilburne pressed his claims to a writ 
of habeas corpus. When he found that for fear of 
the House of Commons no lawyer dared move for 
the writ, he announced his intention of stirring up 
the honest men of London to petition the King's 
Bench for it. Finally he himself petitioned the 
judges to let him move for a writ for himself and 
argue his claim to it in court on the ground of the 
illegality of his commitment. ^^ He obtained op- 
portunity to do so on May 8. His argument was 
on the line indicated above. First, he said, his 
commitment was illegal because it was in general 
terms. Second, it was illegal because the Commons 
had no right of judgment over any man; judgment 
being by the law left in the hands of a sworn judge 

1* The Prisoners Plea for a Habeas Corpus; The Prisoners mournfull 
cry, May 9, 1648, E. 441 (17). 



ORGANIZATION OF THE LEVELLER PARTY 241 

and jury acting on a true bill found by good and 
lawful men. Third, if the House of Commons 
departed in its actions from the just scope of its 
powers as defined by the law of the land and the 
writ of summons, the contract between the members 
and those who chose them, a court like King's 
Bench could apply a legal remedy. When, Lil- 
burne concluded, the Commons departed from the 
just exercise of powers entrusted to them, they 
must certainly cease in any sense to be a court. 
It was the duty of the courts of England such as 
King's Bench to decide all cases coming before 
them according to the known law, without regard 
to the question whether in so doing they went coun- 
ter to the decision of a superior court or the illegal 
action of a legislative body that usurped the func- 
tions of such a court.^^ 

Here was a new development in the constitu- 
tional thinking of the Levellers. It indicated that 
they had outgrown the simple first Agreement of 
the People and the petition of January, 1647/8, 
both of which had indicated as the function of the 
Commons the declaration of the bounds of the 
authority of every officer and court. They no 
longer designed that Parliament should be a supreme 
constituent body free of all restraint from lesser 
authorities and subject to reversal only by the peo- 
ple. Advancing a step further with their doctrine 
that the Parliament must be subject to law, they 
suggested the possibility of an inferior court's sitting 
to review actions of the High Court of Parliament 

19 The Lawes Funerall, May 15, 1648, E. 442 (13). 



242 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

manifestly contrary to the law of England. The 
doctrine of Lilburne left Parliament supreme as a 
legislature, but erected beside it a judiciary bound 
by the known law, but nevertheless capable of 
checking the legislature if it passed the bounds of 
that law. 

II. WILLIAM WALWYN 

The Leveller appeal to reason suggests to the 
student of contemporary controversy the writings 
of one of the most baffling personalities of the Great 
Civil War — William Walwyn. We have to judge 
him not so much by his own acts, as by the sentiment 
he inspired in other men ; and the accounts of friend 
and enemy are so contradictory that at times it 
scarcely seems possible that both can apply to the 
same person. He could inspire men like Lilburne 
with warm and loyal friendship and admiration; 
but certain men of fine character like William Kiffen 
regarded him- with such animosity, dread, and ab- 
horrence that they could not speak of him temper- 
ately. His own writings when sympathetically 
studied afford some insight into his character and 
aims. But they were written in self-defense, and 
therefore guardedly; and we leave them wondering 
if the real Walwyn was not a different person from 
what either friend or foe imagined him. Moreover, 
after all the evidence is in, we feel that it is impossi- 
ble to estimate Walwyn's real influence. A recital 
of the political events of his day would not need to 
mention his name; why, then, did the enemies of 
the Levellers attack him so bitterly? What was 



ORGANIZATION OF THE LEVELLER PARTY 243 

the cause of his influence with the Levellers and how 
extensive was it? These questions we can answer 
only by conjectures; Walwyn, the man, remains in 
great measure inscrutable to us; but at least we can 
be sure of one thing, that Walwyn, whatever else 
he was, was not commonplace. 

In 1649, William KifTen with several Independ- 
ents of high reputation published a lengthy ar- 
raignment of Walwyn. 2" It depicted him as the 
evil genius of the Levellers; it was Walwyn who 
drew petitions for them and suggested to them 
their complaints against the government. Thus 
he set one faction of the godly at variance with the 
other in order to frustrate the establishment of 
England's liberties that both really desired; thus 
he hoped to achieve the end that he had had in 
view since the beginning, the ruin of the parliamen- 
tary party. 

The method of this Machiavelli, Kiffen asserted, 
was to seduce men one by one in private conversa- 
tion. With men of ability he began by suggesting 
doubts of the good faith of Parliament; he slight- 
ingly compared the parliamentary government of 
England with the constitutions of other states. By 
subtle questions as to the ground of his hearers' 
religious faith, he led them to doubt the authority 
of the Scriptures. By ribald and jesting remarks 

20 Walu'ins Wiles; Or The Manifestors Manifested, May 10, 1649, E. 554 
(24). It is an account signed by William Kiffen, David Lordell, John 
Price, Richard Amald, Edmund Rosier, Henry Foster, Henry Burnet. 
According to Walwyn, the materials for it had been collected some years 
earlier, when first he had fallen out with the London Independents. 
Walwyns Just Defence, p. 3. 



244 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

with a show of wit on religious questions he 
gradually profaned the things that the mind had 
before held holiest. Finally, he turned his victims' 
thoughts from the ideal of religious reform avowed 
by Parliament and fixed them on purely secular 
policies and reasonings. With persons of weaker 
minds or lower station he had another method of 
approach. He blamed the Parliament for the neg- 
lect of its best and truest friends, and assured his 
hearers that those in authority sought not the pub- 
lic good so much as their own aggrandizement. 
To the lowly he expressed his opinion that men 
should be preferred in public office in proportion to 
their ability, whether they were nobles or cobblers ; 
to desperate men of strong heads but small under- 
standing he proposed communism. He embodied 
in petitions increasingly violent his tirades against 
the abuses of the government, such as violations of 
the Self-Denying Ordinance, exaction of tithes, and 
heavy taxation, till finally he inflamed his hearers 
to the point of plunging into bloodshed and accom- 
plishing their own ruin. 

Such a portrait anyone will reject as unsatisfac- 
tory; the lines may be in the main correct, but they 
are so combined as to make the face a mere carica- 
ture. The known facts of Walwyn's life can be 
quickly told. He was born about 1600 and was a 
member of the Merchant Adventurers; he was 
married and was the father of twenty children. ^^ 

2' In 1646 he was about 45 years of age. A Whisper In The Eare of 
Mr. Thomas Edwards, Mar. 13, 1645/6, E. 328 (2), p. 3; The Charity of 
Church-Men by Dr. Henry Brook, May 28, 1649, E. 556 (20), pp. 5, 10, 11. 



ORGANIZATION OF THE LEVELLER PARTY 245 

His conscience did not compel him to withdraw 
from the parish churches when Presbyterianism 
was preached in them ; but as early as 1 643 his per- 
sonal beliefs were nearly Antinomian." When the 
Long Parliament met, he and others first set about 
reforming their parish of St. James, Garlic Hill. 
Next they secured the election of officers of the 
right temper in their ward; and finally Walwyn 
urged the common council that it petition Parlia- 
ment to confirm certain maxims of government 
These maxims, according to Walwyn, defined the 
relation of the Parliament and king so exactly that, 
if the Parliament had adopted them at the outset, 
they would have reclaimed many men whose ig- 
norance seduced them into fighting for the king's 
arbitrary power.^* Although Walwyn was, as we 
have seen, nominally Presbyterian, he crossed 
swords with Edwards on behalf of the Independents, 
issuing a series of pamphlets parallel with Gan- 
graena.^* He allied himself with the radical Inde- 
pendent faction, and was present at the Windmill 
Tavern meeting. 

When the split between Independents and Lev- 
ellers occurred he followed the Levellers. His 
personality had been one of the causes of the 
breach. He was personally obnoxious to Indepen- 
dents like John and Richard Price and John Good- 

22 Walwyns Just Defence, p. 8. 

2' A Whisper In The Eare, p. 4. 

2* A Whisper In The Eare of Mr. Thomas Edwards, Mar. 13, 1645/6, 
E. 328 (2); A Word More To Mr. Thomas Edwards, Mar. 19, 1645/6, E. 
328 (20) ; A Prediction Of Mr. Edwards His Cofiversion, and Recantation, 
Aug. 11, 1646, E. 1184' (5). 



246 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

win; and in 1646 they began, by his account, to 
collect and retail scandalous stories and reports 
concerning him, being encouraged to persevere by 
his own temperamental unwillingness to reply in 
print." Although he had little to do with the 
Levellers after January of 1649, he was nevertheless 
one of the four men who were arrested in March and 
charged with the authorship of the second part of 
Englands New-Chaines Discovered. ^^ He was re- 
leased after the trial and acquittal of Lilburne that 
same year. Beyond the fact that he wrote in 1650 
a defense of trial by jury, we know nothing further 
of his life." 

Let us now turn to the interpretation given us by 
Walwyn and his friends. We can keep in mind two 
touches from the hostile portrait — the man's tireless 
reasoning with his acquaintances, and the excuse 
he was made to give for trying by questions the 
religious faith of men, "to understand how men are 
setled in their faith, and to help them therein. "^^ 
Walwyn had a supreme faith in the power of reason. 
"All the war I have made," he said, "hath been to 
get victory on the understandings of men."^^ Even 
to the climax of the Levellers' propaganda in 1649, 
he had faith that their ideal settlement could be 
secured if only they set about convincing men of its 

^ Walwyns Just Defence, pp. 3-4. 

29 The Picture Of The Councel of State, Apr. 11, 1649, E. 550 (14), p. 2. 
A second edition of Englands New-Chaines is avowed by Lilbume, 
Overton, and Prince — mention of Walwyn being omitted. 

^T Juries justified, Dec. 2, 1650, E. 618 (9). 

2^ Walwins Wiles, p. 5. 

^^ A Whisper In The Eare, p. 3. 



ORGANIZATION OF THE LEVELLER PARTY 247 

excellence by argument. Nothing, he said, was so 
certain to secure peace and harmony, whether in 
nations or families, "as the giving, and hearing, and 
debating of reason."*" 

If this quiet, middle-aged neighbor, thinking his 
conscience imposed on him the duty of seeking the 
good of all men, went quietly from man to man 
reasoning in this fashion, one can understand the 
alarm he caused Presbyterian, Independent, and 
Anabaptist alike. A man who steered his course 
in life by reason alone ! ^^ A man on whose spirit the 
peace of the Antinomian had fallen so that religion 
no longer seemed bound up with ecclesiastical plat- 
forms and establishments, but merely a motive to 
send individual men about seeking to do good to 
their fellows! Small blame to Kiffen and Price if 
they shuddered more at the probable result of such 
teaching than at the "licentious provoking daring- 
ness" of Lilburne, or the "notorious profanness" 
of Overton !'2 

Walwyn's style of discourse afforded enemies a 
ready means of attacking him. If, like Socrates, he 
touched the fundamentals of men's beliefs by his 
questionings, his questions could be used to prove 

'" The Fountain Of Slaunder Discovered, pp. 15, 18. 

^1 "Admit then my Conscience have been necessitated to break 
through all kinds of Superstition, as finding no peace, but distraction 
and instability therein, and have found out true uncorrupt Religion, and 
placed my joy and contentment therein; admit I find it so briefe and 
plaine, as to be understood in a very short time, by the meanest capacity, 
so sweet and delectable as cannot but be embraced, so certain as cannot 
be doubted, so powerfull to dissolve man into love, and to set me on work 
to do the will of hirn that loved me " Ibid., p. 6. 

'2 WalTifims Wiles, p. 2. 



248 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

his own Impiety. If with the intention of making 
his hearers try all things by reason, only to hold fast 
to what was good, he followed out a chain of reason- 
ing to a logical conclusion that seemed the paradox 
of current beliefs and customs, his conclusions 
might be attributed to him as his real opinion. '^ 
Probably at times he displayed an irreverent ap- 
preciation of the unconscious humor in the religious 
phraseology of his day ; and he soon had to complain 
that his enemies caught up his remarks, second, 
third, or tenth hand, distorted them, and turned 
them against him. His backwardness in refuting 
his opponents at the first encouraged them in this 
style of attack. When finally he and his friends 
undertook to reply, they found that the charges 
against him were based on undated and garbled 
conversations, so that it was impossible to refute 
every one specifically. Walwyn himself undertook 
to reply to his critics by revealing the true purpose 
of his communion with men and manner of life; 
thus he hoped to explain the reason for the enmity 
displayed against him.'* 

'^ For instance, take the reasoning on communism attributed to him. 
" That it was a sad and miserable thing that it should so continue, and that 
it would never be well untill all things were common; and it being replyed, 
will that he ever? Answered, we must endeavour it: It being said, That 
this would destroy all Government; Answered, That then there would 
be lesse need of Government, for then there would be no theeves, no covetous 
persons, no deceiving and abusing of one another . . . ." Walwins 
Wiles, p. 13. See Note III on p. 255. 

** The Fountain Of Slaunder Discovered; Walwyns Just Defence; The 
Charity of Church-Men. This last book is signed "R. B." and is attrib- 
uted to Dr. Robert Brook by Lilbume. Legal Fundamentall Liberties, 
p. 25. 



ORGANIZATION OF THE LEVELLER PARTY 249 

The charges against him can be divided into the 
following groups. First may be put such extrava- 
gant and unlikely statements as did not appear in 
print, but circulated the streets — as that he was a 
Jesuit, was incontinent, believed in polygamy, was 
a drunkard, painted his face for effeminate reasons. ''^ 

Second, there was a body of blasphemous say- 
ings attributed to him, such as a remark that there 
was more wit in Lucian than in the Bible, such as 
jestingly telling a woman that in not visiting his 
wife she sinned the sin against the Holy Ghost, 
such as persuading the same woman to commit 
suicide. These Walwyn and his friends denied or 
explained one by one so far as they were able.*^ 

Third, various radical religious views were im- 
puted to him, such as denial of the authority of the 
Scriptures, disbelief in eternal punishment, belief 
that good works were the only real worship; even 
atheism. The first and last charges Walwyn denied 
categorically, referring to one of his earlier books for 
a statement of his views ; a friend guardedly denied 
for him the second also. At the best, however, Wal- 
wyn's theology was unconventional.'^ 

The charges that he taught "levelHng" or com- 
munism he repeatedly denied ; stating as his creed 
on such subjects the Burnt Petition of March, 1647, 

35 The Charity of Church-Men, p. 10; The Fountain Of Slaunder Dis- 
covered, p. 7; Wahvyns Just Defence, p. 13. 

3' These are found in Walwins Wiles, pp. 7, 9. All mentioned above 
are explained away in the three books mentioned in note 35. 

*^ The Fountain Of Slaunder Discovered, p. 6; The Charity of Church- 
Men, passim. The book to which he refers, A Still 6° Soft Voice, is not 
in the British Museum. 



250 TEE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

the Manifestation, and the later Agreement of 1649. 
He once admitted his hope that a proper settlement 
of the government would make it possible to rear- 
range England's economic system, so that every 
man willing to work might live in comfort. ' * Every 
man," he said in stating his religious creed, "ought 
to be protected in the use of that wherein he doth 
not actually hurt another," and possibly he would 
have assented to the transference of the principle to 
economics.*^ 

On every point Walwyn's political doctrine traced 
back to his faith in the efficacy of an appeal to man's 
reason. On this ground he defended the doctrine 
of toleration against Edwards, taking up for par- 
ticular attention Edwards's sarcasms on preaching 
cobblers. If learned men were unable to agree as 
to the meaning of many passages of Scripture, com- 
mon men who were bound alike with the learned by 
the divine command to try all things must have a 
right to judge for themselves on points of doctrine; 
if they judged badly after having sought earnestly 
for knowledge, could their weakness of understand- 
ing be attributed to them for a crime ?^^ 

If it be correct to ascribe Englands Lamentable 
Slaverie'^^ to Walwyn's authorship, he had by 1645 
come to regard as the bulwark of English liberty not 
Magna Charta itself so much as the eternal rules of 
equity and justice which it had imperfectly exem- 

38 Walwyns Just Defence, pp. 23, 24, 30; The Fountain Of Slaunder 
Discovered, p. 7. 

3" See Note IV, p. 256. 
^'^ Supra, p. 116. 



ORGANIZATION OF THE LEVELLER PARTY 251 

pllfied. Those rules of course were rules whose 
fixation and interpretation lay only within the rea- 
son of man. It is true that in A Word in season, 
published at a time when it was to the interest of 
the Independents to encourage Parliament to a 
decided stand against Presbyterianism, he had 
seemed to argue for parliamentary absolutism ; but 
although he had nsisted on the power of Parliament 
to decide finally on questions of church government, 
he had qualified this assertion with the proviso 
that its judgment must be according to the laws of 
God and the rules of equity and reason. Under the 
circumstances it could scarcely have been politic 
to suggest that the common people of England had 
a right to judge as to whether the parliamentary 
ecclesiastical establishment accorded with equity, 
reason and the law of God.^"- 

One finally asks what was the influence of Walwyn 
on the Leveller movement. That we shall proba- 
bly never know with certainty. According to Dr. 

*i A Word in season is sometimes attributed to Sadler, a member of 
Goodwin's congregation. The edition in the British Museum corre- 
sponds in make-up with that of Walwyn's pamphlets against Edwards. 
Walwyn claims the authorship of it {Walwyns Just Defence, p. 31), and 
adds that Goodwin's congregation had spent 50s toward 10,000 copies 
of it. 

Walwyn's political ideal was probably Switzerland. The organiza- 
tion of the little republic, keeping up no army though by nature far 
more exposed to attack than England, but relying on the disciphne of 
its militia to secure the respect of foreign powers; punishing sternly 
any corruption in its officers and accounting in them as the worst of 
offenses the exceeding of their lawful authority, made a deep impression 
on his iniagination. He hoped for a settlement of England on similar 
lines in politics. The Fountain OJ Slaunder Discovered, p. 15. 



252 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

Brook, Walwyn had rescued most of the people's 
Hberties "out of a heap of contrary Doctrines, and 
PoHtick concealments .... He hath studied 
the Peoples Freedoms so radically, and hath brought 
to light Principles so supportive thereof, and so es- 
sentiall thereunto, that no other Designe but their 
good, can with any pretence be fixt upon him."^^ 
A modem critic applies to him the epithets, maun- 
dering, half-educated, of small ability.^^ But to the 
minds of Kiffen, Price, and their friends, Walwyn 
was the director of the whole Leveller movement, 
and Lilburne his mere puppet. To Walwyn they 
ascribed the device of circulating Leveller mani- 
festos under the form of petitions ; to Walwyn they 
ascribed the authorship of the petitions themselves. 
There is good reason for assigning to him at least 
a share in the composition of that of March, 1647.^* 
Other evidence attests his importance in that year. 
A cipher key apparently for use by the Levellers and 
RepubHcans at some time in 1647, after the entrance 
of the army into politics, has cipher symbols for the 
names of Wlldman, Marten, Overton, and Walwyn 
among the Levellers. The omission of Lilburne is 
perhaps due to his comparative inactivity in the 
Tower, perhaps to his comparative unimportance 
in the movement at the moment.^^ The little ex- 
tant evidence of Walwyn's activity inclines one to 

« The Charity oj Church-Men, p. 11. 
^' David Masson, Lije. oj Milton, IV, 45. 

^ Walwins Wiles, p. 18; The Fountain Of Slaunder Discovered, p. 7. 
« Loder Symonds Mss., Hist. Mss. Comm., 15th Rep., App., Pt. iv, p. 
401. These contain some of the papers of Henry Marten. 



ORGANIZATION OF THE LEVELLER PARTY 253 

the opinion that his part in the Leveller movement 
is easier underestimated than overestimated. 

One wonders if he first suggested the idea that 
the soldiery of the army combine with the people to 
promote their common interest by an Agreement 
of the People. It is impossible to trace the men 
who wrote the first Agreement, though what evi- 
dence we have points to its origin among the soldiers 
themselves. Yet the obscurity of its origin is what 
one would expect in something begun by Walwyn. 

At all events, in the Leveller policy delineated in 
this chapter it is impossible to see anything else but 
Walwyn's influence. The conscious resolution to 
frame an excellent constitutional settlement and 
then trust to its conquering men's reason by the very 
appearance of goodness and justice in it, is typical 
of Walwyn as of no other man of the time. The 
appeal to the men of England to reason with one 
another like brothers, to inquire one of another 
what the liberties they had fought for really were — 
this is all the simple transference of Walwyn's 
method of proselyting to the whole kingdom. The 
Levellers have been accused of impracticability and 
building of air castles simply because their attempt 
to appeal to the reason of the people, and their faith 
in the ability of reason to overcome all things have 
been ignored. They have been pictured as narrow 
fanatics who sought to force upon the kingdom, to 
quote Carlyle, a doctrinaire "Sieyes-Bentham con- 
stitution." But in their propaganda the Agreement 
of the People was not in itself an end, but merely a 
device that promised to secure the establishment of 



254 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

certain rules of justice and liberty. The Leveller 
movement was a crusade for the establishment of 
those rules — rules believed to be so consonant to 
reason that the nation, if it would but listen to 
friendly argument, could not help but be captured 
by them. 

NOTES 

I. The Prophecy of John Saltmarsh 

Perhaps the penitence of the army leaders for Corkbush Field was 
caused in part by the dying prophecy of John Saltmarsh. Saltmarsh 
had been a chaplain with the army, but generally had kept free of 
politics. On December 4, he left his home and set out for the army, 
telling his wife he had received in a trance directions to announce what 
the Lord had revealed to him. Prophesying to some of his friends 
on his journey his approaching death, he arrived in the camp; he 
warned an agitator to leave the army lest he perish with it in the 
wrath of God; he told the Council that God had forsaken them be- 
cause they had imprisoned their faithful brethren and had sought 
to destroy the people of God. With speeches of the same sort to Crom- 
well, Fairfax, and others as individuals, he left the army forever; he 
died on the eleventh of December. Such a thing would have its efifect 
on the men who made up the New Model, even on men like Cromwell. 
It is significant of the real rationalism of the Levellers that they never 
attempted to utilize this incident as a divine judgment on their oppo- 
nents. Wonderful Predictions Declared In a Message, as from the Lord, 
To . . . Sr Thomas Fairfax and the Councell of His Army, Dec. 29, 
1647, E. 421 (16). Strange as this account is, I can see no reason 
for doubting its authenticity. The pamphlet has a convincing air of 
truth, and so far as I know its statements were never questioned. Cf. 
Clarke Papers, II, 247, 249; Englands Friend Raised from the Grave, 
July 31, 1649, E. 566 (13). 

II. A Hostile Description of the Leveller Organization 

An organization such as Masterson's information unearthed in Janu- 
ary is described in an anonymous pamphlet. The Case of The King 
Stated (E. 416 [5] ), which Thomason dates November 18. The fact 
that the author uses Pragmaticus^s motto, "Nemo me impune lacessit," 
as well as the style suggests Nedham as a possible candidate for the 
honor of authorship. The author accuses the agents of the army of 



ORGANIZATION OF THE LEVELLER PARTY 255 

seeking to dissolve the Parliament, and in a new one "of their own 
framing" to sentence the king to death. "Nor," he proceeds, "doe 
they sleep in this cursed businesse, but have Agents of their own in all 
Quarters of the Army, the Countries abroad, and the City of London, 
to draw in Persons to subscribe to the aforesaid damned particulars 
[apparently the Case Of The Armie]. And it hath been my good hap 
to light upon a Copy of Instructions agreed upon by the Agents of the 
City of London, and the Army, to the respective Counties, Cities, and 
Parishes, whereunto severall Papers of those particulars were directed 
by the chiefe Conspirators, for the more orderly carrying on, and the 
more speedy effecting and bringing in the subscriptions. The Instruc- 
tions are these: 

"First, that the Papers be delivered to such faithful! persons, as will 
be vigilant, and active in prosecution of them. 

"Secondly, That they be desired to meet at places which they shall 
judge most convenient, to take the Subscriptions of the City or place 
where they reside. 

"Thirdly, That there be appointed one, or more Agents, as they shall 
judge meet, to bring in the Subscriptions as soone as possibly they can, 
to the Saracen's Head in Friday-street in London, where there will be 
Agents to receive them, or the Master of the House (let that fellow be 
taken notice of) will direct them where they shall be received. 

"Fourthly, that one or more active faithfull man be appointed for 
each County, City, or Place, as aforesaid, to act and transact such 
tilings as may conduce to the good of the work in hand." 

III. Walwyn and Communism 

As Mr. Gooch in his English Democralii Ideas, p. 211, has connected 
Walwyn with communism, the evidence for believing him a professed com- 
munist may be considered for a moment. The sole piece of unequivocal 
testimon> is the passage quoted above from Walwins Wiles — a book written 
almost with the avowed intent of making Walwyn despicable in all ways 
possible. Charge after charge in the book is refuted by Walwyn and his 
friends. The communistic reasoning quoted above on p. 248, like most 
of the book's charges, has no one's name to evidence it. It is possible 
to interpret it as proving only that Walwyn could see the force in certain 
arguments for communism; this does not prove that he advocated it, 
any more than it does in the case of one-half the educated men of today. 
Both Walwyn and Brook stated that Walwyn was in favor of com- 
munism no further than was implied in the Manifestation, the Agree- 
ment of the People of the spring of 1649, and the petition of March, 



256 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

1647. The Manifestation expressly stated that communism would be 
impossible till every man consented to it. The Levellers were scarcely 
so simple as to think this principle would make its way readily to uni- 
versal acceptance with men of property. It is hard to see why Walwyn 
cannot be left with his own denial of his belief in community of prop- 
erty. At the time Walwins Wiles was published, the opponents of the 
political Levellers were deliberately stri\ing to make them responsible 
for the communistic beliefs and practices of the little group of Diggers. 

IV. Walwyn and Liberty of Conscience 

Walwyn has usually been set down among the chief supporters of 
liberty of conscience in his day. Brook stated that Walwyn had had a 
hand in the earliest of the books written in behalf of liberty of con- 
science; and this passage has been interpreted as referring to Henry 
Robinson's Liberty of Conscience. It has occurred to me, however, 
that Brook's remark may refer to an earlier work, and one, if I am 
right, far more characteristic of Walwyn. In 1641 a small book, The 
Humble Petition Of The Brownists, was obscurely printed and amid 
the polemics of the day passed completely unnoticed. Of secondary 
writers referring to it, Dr. W'allace St. John in a doctoral dissertation, 
The Contest for Religious Liberty in England (University of Chicago 
Divinity School, 1900, p. 56), is deceived by the title into thinking 
it was actually addressed to the Parliament. In common with R. 
Barclay in his Religious Societies of the Commonwealth (p. 476), and 
H. A. Glass in his Barbone Parliament (p. 21), he assumes from the 
title that it is a Separatist piece. The likeUhood of Separatists referring 
to themselves as Brownists is not great, however — the term was too 
generally used as a reproach. Gardiner thinks the piece a caricature 
{History of England, X, 35) ; and probably at first sight that is the most 
plausible explanation. 

Disregarding for the moment any possible satirical tendencies in the 
book, it appears as a daring exposition of the principle of liberty of 
conscience. It meets unflinchingly the question of tolerating the papist, 
even the Adamite and the Separatist. "There is no man," it states, 
"that professeth a Religion, but is in conscience perswaded that to be 
the best wherein to save his soule, & can give no doubt some reason, 
yea, and alleage some authority out of the word of God for it, which 
is an argument that not his will, but his Judgement is convinced, and 
therefore holds it unreasonable to be forced to follow other mens 

Judgements and not his owne in a matter of so great importance 

If the Puritans wiU not use the Service Booke, Corner Cap, Surplesse 
or Altar, nor bow at the name of Jesus, their pure hearts esteeming it 



ORGANIZATION OF THE LEVELLER PARTY 257 

Idolatrie, Let them alone, they are great readers of Gods booke, and if 
they bee in errour, they will sooner finde it, having liberty of conscience, 
then being oppressed with the Tyranny of the High Commission Court 
or other kindes of persecutions which disquiet their consciences and 

troubles their patience Let the Adamites Preach in vaults 

& caves as naked as their nailes, and starve themselves with cold, 
they thinke themselves as innocent as Adam and Eve were in their 
nakednesse before their fall, let them therefore alone till some innocent 
Eve bee so curious as to eate forbidden fruit, and then they will all make 
themselves aprons of figge leaves perceiving their nakednesse." The 
excuse for quoting this passage must be that it offers strong evidence 
regarding the authorship of the piece. If my analysis of Walwyn be 
correct, he was just the man to put truths of this sort in a way that to 
one not in tune with his spirit might seem the merest ribaldry. 

The consideration that militates against regarding the petition as a 
satire on the sects is that the satire, if satire it be, was far too delicate 
for the popular consumption of the age; seventeenth-century political 
satire went plainly labeled. Further, there is nothing in the piece to 
indicate at first hand what religious belief its author was supporting. 
An AngUcan satirizing the sects would not have included apologies for 
the Arminian; Hyde had the skill to forge the book, but would scarcely 
have made it politically so pointless. Admitting the petition to be 
serious in intent, the internal evidence all points to its composition by 
a man mentally nearer like Walwyn than any other writer of the day. 

A comparison of the plan of the piece, which handles the Brownists, 
Socinians, Arminians, Papists, and Familists, in the same manner as 
the Puritans and Adamites, with a passage in A Prediction Of Mr. 
Edwards His Conversion, and Recantation, affords additional evidence. 
"You shal then see him a man composed of all those opinions he hath 
so much reviled! an Independent: so far as to allow every man to be 
fully perswaded in his owne mind, and to molest no man for wor- 
shiping God according to his conscience. 

"A Brownist; so far, as to separate from all those that preach for 
filthy lucre; An Anabaptist: so far, at least, as to be rebaptized in a 
floud of his owne true repentent teares: A seeker; in seeking occasion, 
how to doe good unto all men, without respect of persons or opinions; 
he will be wholly incorporate into the Family of love, of true Christian 
love, that covereth a multitude of evils . . . . " 

If the surmise be correct that Walwyn was the author of this plea, 
so daring that it could admit the worst practical effects that might 
result occasionally from the broad application of its principle, he as- 
suredly deserves a high seat among the men who fought the battle of 
liberty of conscience. 



CHAPTER VIII 

November-March, 1648/49 

i. the last alliance of leveller and 
independent 

TN the crucial six months of English history be- 
■*■ ginning with November, 1648, the alinement 
of parties in a measure was determined by the fact 
that Levellers and army Independents agreed on 
their destructive, but not on their constructive pro- 
gram. In November the Grandees were prepared 
to exemplify the theory of national sovereignty by 
doing away with king and Lords ; and thus far they 
had a right to expect Leveller support. But, al- 
though they seemed ready for a time to exemplify 
their theory further in an Agreement of the People, 
they speedily dismissed the project when they no 
longer needed the Levellers, and established the 
Commonwealth government on very different lines. 
The Levellers, after sitting in sullen silence for three 
months after the king's execution, renounced and 
defied the Commonwealth that the officers had set 
up, and recurred to their own political project, 
the Agreement of the People. 

The turn of political events in 1648 again brought 
the Levellers to the side of the army Independents. 
Forgetting the ill-usage they had suffered in the 
army councils and the rendezvous of November, 
1647, the Levellers adhered to the Independents and 

258 



NOVEMBER-MARCH, 1648/49 259 

rejected the overtures of the Presbyterians, who 
were more or less openly alined with the Royalists. 
The Presbyterians indeed by August had become 
assiduous in their attentions to Lilburne. On 
August I the House of Commons under Presby- 
terian tutelage removed the restraint it had put him 
under in January, and referred to a special commit- 
tee the task of satisfying his Star-Chamber damages 
and settling his arrears. Next day the Lords re- 
voked their former sentence against him.^ But 
Lilburne, not to be won over by his old enemies, 
wrote Cromwell a letter pledging him the support 
of the Levellers. As Cromwell received it at the 
height of the rebellion of 1648 when he hardly knew 
friend from foe, Lilburne's avowed support must 
have been welcome. ^ 

Moreover, the army officers were inclined to favor 
the decisive measures advocated by the Levellers 
rather than the cautious policy of the city Inde- 
pendents. Thus the Levellers on September nth 
presented a petition to the Commons that addressed 
them as the supreme authority and urged them to 
forbear treating with the king; and, although the 
city Independents held aloof from the petition, 
Cromwell, by Lilburne's account, heartily approved 
it.» 

1 Commons Journal, V, 657, 658; Lords Journal, X, 406; A Speech 
Spoken in the Honourable House of Commons. By Sir lohn Maynard, 
Aug. 11, 1648, E. 458 (2). 

2 Legal Fundamentall Liberties, pp. 32 ff. 

^ The petition protested against the Commons recognizing the nega- 
tive of king or Lords; it rehearsed the usual Leveller reforms. It was 
mainly intended as a protest against a treaty with the king. Mercurius 



260 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

Yet the fundamental differences in policy between 
Grandees and Levellers appeared as soon as con- 
ferences began. Each side regarded the other with 
suspicion and planned to use its ally to further its 
own ends. Thus when the leaders of the two fac- 
tions conferred at the Nags Head Tavern in Novem- 
ber, the city Independents, again in unity with their 
brethren of the army, insisted on breaking up the 
Parliament and doing justice on the king imme- 
diately. The Levellers refused to trust the army 
with the execution of this policy until the army had 
assured them of its good faith by setting up an 
Agreement of the People and a new Parliament. 
Meanwhile, as Lilburne admitted, the Levellers 
proposed to make sure of fair dealing from the army 
by holding both king and Parliament as political 
countersets to it, to be played against it if occasion 
should arise.* 

The Independents, finding that hot words would 
not melt the determination of the Levellers, sub- 
mitted the question at issue to a second conference 
between four men of each party. The Levellers 
gained their point in this conference. The joint 
committee agreed on the following resolutions,^ 
whose phraseology, it will be seen, resembles in a 
startling degree the stock phrases that denote the 

Pragmaticus, Sept. 12-19, asserted Henry Marten was the author; 
Pragmaticus further stated that the Levellers claimed 40,000 signatures 
to it. Legal Fundamentall Liberties, p. 33. 

^ Legal Fu7idamentall Liberties, p. 33. 

^ Ibid., p. 34. John Price and Walwyn were dropped because of 
Price's refusal to have any dealings with Walwyn. 



NOVEMBER-MARCH, 1648/49 261 

powers and functions of an American constitutional 
convention. 

That some persons be chosen by the Army to represent the 
whole Body; and that the well-affected in every County (if 
it may be) chuse some persons to represent them : And those 
to meet at the Head-Quarters. 

That those persons ought not to exercise any Legislative 
power, but onely to draw up the foundations of a just Gov- 
ernment, and to propound them to the well-affected people 
in every County to be agreed to : Which Agreement ought to 
be above Law; and therefore the bounds, limits, and extent 
of the peoples Legislative Deputies in Parliament, contained 
in the Agreement to be drawn up into a formall contract, 
to be mutually signed by the well-affected people and 
their said Deputies upon the dayes of their Election respec- 
tively . . . . ^ 

Ire ton, to whom as the representative of the offi- 
cers this scheme was submitted, could hardly be 
expected to approve it. Within a day or two of the 
time it was presented to him, he had secured the 
adoption by the council of the army of a remon- 
strance of his penning. This army platform de- 
manded the bringing of the king to justice, and pro- 
posed an Agreement of the People that put only 

^ Legal Fundamentall Liberties, p. 34. 

A similar proposition appears in The Humble Representation of the 
Desires of . . . the Regiment of Horse, for the County of Northumber- 
land, Dec. 5, 1648, E. 475 (13). Each regiment and each county are to 
choose two or more representatives "joyntly to sit consult and act in the 
behalf of themselves, the people, and Army; and that the removal of our 
oppressions, and obtainment of our Freedom, acording to the premises 
above-said, be the only work of their Agitation." The power of the 
deputies extends for but two months, when the people and regiments 
are to choose anew. These bi-monthly elections are to continue till the 
task is done. Among other things this petition demands the abolition 
of servile tenures originating with the Norman conquest. 



262 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

such limitations on the recurring "representatives" 
as would serve to keep power in their own hands, 
secure regularly recurring elections and prevent 
interference with the act of indemnity.'' Ireton 
knew too well that the Levellers would never accept 
such an Agreement of the People; he knew also that 
it could not pass the constitutional convention that 
they proposed without a renewal of the bitter de- 
bates of 1647.^ 

However, the Levellers were the only group of men 
who had in the past maintained so radical a position 
as that of Ireton's remonstrance; and it therefore 
was important that they be conciliated. Colonel 

^E. 473 (11). The Remonstrance is dated Nov. 16, and was pre- 
sented to Parliament Nov. 20. The Agreement it contained limited 
the franchise to persons who had accepted the Agreement and to those 
who for a term of years had not warred against the Parliament. 

The doctrine of the sovereignty of the people, employed by Ireton 
in the Remonstrance, was no such new discovery as one might imagine 
from Gardiner {Great Civil War, IV, 235). I cannot find Gardiner's 
authority for the statement that the Agreement in the last paragraphs 
of the Remonstrance was added by a committee of Levellers and Inde- 
pendents. There is not a word to that effect in the pages of Legal 
Fundamentall Liberties he quotes as authority. Also, I cannot see the 
force of his criticism of the Agreement as inconsistent with the doctrine 
of the sovereignty of the people (Gardiner, IV, 239). Surely their rela- 
tion was means and end. 

* The idea of an Agreement had been revived by army agents in 
April of 1648. They had petitioned for the establishment of a biennial 
"representative" and further "that there be a known and certain rule 
between the people and their representatives that are chosen and in- 
trusted with that supreame power of making Lawes." The paper 
added several limitations on the power of representatives, and then 
proposed that the rule between people and representative be sealed 
in a contract between them on days of election. The Armies Petition, 
May 3, 1648, E. 438 (1). The same idea elaborated appears in a iVew 
Engagement, or Manifesto, Aug. 3, 1648, 669 f., 12 (97). 



NOVEMBER-MARCH, 1648/49 263 

Harrison undertook the task. He frankly admitted 
to Lllburne that the usage the Levellers had had 
from the army in the past justified them in demand- 
ing for the future proofs of good faith expressed in 
deeds rather than words. But Harrison also frankly 
explained the difficulties of the officers. It was 
essential that they advance on London and begin 
proceedings against the king at once. They could 
not wait while a constitutional convention, such as 
the Levellers demanded, was called and set to 
deliberation.^ 

When so dealt with, Lilburne was always amen- 
able to reason. On this occasion he admitted the 
force of Harrison's arguments. He suggested that 
the absolute power of framing an Agreement be 
deputed to a committee consisting of four officers, 
four city Independents, four Independent members 
of Parliament, and four Levellers; he would be 
willing, he said, to see four Presbyterians also on the 
committee. His only stipulation was that the doc- 
ument produced by the committee be accepted as 
final, and submitted to the people without amend- 
ment; and this stipulation he understood the officers 
to accept.^ 

The committee duly assembled. Henry Marten 
was the only representative of the Independent 
members of the Commons who attended ; Lilburne, 
Walwyn, Wildman, and Maximilian Petty repre- 
sented the Levellers, being chosen at a meeting of 
agents from London and its environs; Ireton of 

' Legal Fundamentall Liberties, pp. 34 ff. 



264 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

course was one of the army representatives. In the 
meetings of the committee long and hot debates 
were caused by the narrow measure of religious 
toleration that Ireton thought desirable, and his 
insistence that Parliament be left the power of in- 
flicting penalties for offenses not defined as such by 
the law. At last these points were adjusted, and 
the completed document was referred to the council 
of war. 

When the council of war began to debate and to 
amend the committee's draft Agreement, the Level- 
lers considered that the officers had broken faith. 
Lilburne and his friends withdrew from the council 
in anger. They published the Agreement as framed 
by the committee; and in presenting it to the people 
of the nation, reaffirmed their faith in the power of 
things reasonable in themselves to convince men. 
With the publication of the Agreement, the alliance 
between Leveller, Grandee, and Independent was 
at an end.^° 

Probably the Levellers were justified in their com- 
plaint that the officers, in sanctioning the amend- 
ment of the Agreement, broke their bargain. At 
the same time it must be admitted that the attitude 
of Ireton was much more conciliatory than in the 
debates of 1647. He laid aside his arrogance, and 
labored earnestly for the adoption of an Agreement 
that would have some chance of being accepted by 
the nation. He included in the Agreement a clause 
fixing the time at which the Rump should dissolve, 

^" Legal Fundamentdl Liber ties , p. 40. The Agreement published is 
in E. 476 (26). 



NOVEMBER-MARCH, 1648/49 265 

hoping that this might tempt the people to accept the 
Agreement.^^ Moreover, in an effort to attain the 
same end he seems to have sacrificed his own opin- 
ions. Thus he acquiesced in the Agreement's set- 
ting outside the reach of the new "representative" 
certain specific powers such as the power of im- 
pressment, although he himself retained the opinion 
that the ideal constitution was a Parliament re- 
strained only from the right to perpetuate itself. ^^ 

In urging the council to adopt the Agreement in 
the form he desired, Ireton had to contend with the 
vague feeling of unrest, uncertainty, and indecision 
that made many officers hesitate to take a decisive 
step. In the days between Pride's Purge and the 
king's execution, when no man could tell whether 
events would lead to the king's restoration, arraign- 
ment, or deposition, the fanatics of the army were 
inclined to wait for a direct manifestation of God's 
will. An army chaplain of note, William Sedgwick, 
in a series of tracts visited partial condemnation on 
all parties, but absolute condemnation on none, not 
even the king's. The whole nation, he announced, 
under the woes that God had inflicted on it must 
humbly bewail its sins and sit still to await divine 
guidance. Under these circumstances it seemed to 
Sedgwick carnal presumption for any set of men to 
seek a carnal remedy like an Agreement of the Peo- 

^^ Clarke Papers, II, 170-171. 

12". . . . lett us make such a distribution of the publique trust 
in such hands as shall give everyone an equaU share, an equaU interest 
and possibility, and lett us subroitt ourselves to these future Represen- 
tatives, and if wee bee nott satisfied in one Representative itt may bee 
satisfied in the next." Clarke Papers, II, 82. See also pp. 176-177. 



266 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

pie for the woes with which God had afflicted the 
kingdom. 1^ To hotter fanatics who felt that the 
great day of the Lord was at hand, it seemed im- 
pious for mere men to do anything but wait on 
the Lord's will. Some distrusted the Agreement as 
the imposition on men's consciences of a new Cov- 
enant. Others regarded it as burdening men with a 
new government. Still others thought it an impious 
temptation of Providence as putting into the hands 
of carnal men the power that divine dispensations 
had put into the hands of God's Saints. ^^ 

Ireton did his best to answer these objections. 
He told one objector that the Agreement was not 

^^ Justice upon the Armie Remonstrance. Or A rebuke of that evill spirit 
that leads them in their Counsels and Actions, Dec. 11, 1648, E. 475 (34); 
A second view of the Army Remonstrance, Or Justice done to the Armie, 
Dec. 23, 1648, E. 477 (20); The Leaves of the Tree Of Life: For the healing 
of The Nations, Aug. 25, 1648, E. 460 (40). In this last pamphlet he 
arraigns the Levellers. 

"Thy errors are these. Thou canst not bear the Kingdomes suffering 
under the hand of God, nor thy owne; but in a carnall love of this 
worldly state, seekest to uphold it against the justice of God; and so 
fallest into the same evill of thy Fathers self-love and preservation, in 
enmity to the Lord. To save thy self, that the overflowing scourge 
may not come nigh thee; thou makest a Covenant with hell, and an 
Agreement with death; the Agreement of the People, who are turned by 
the Divine justice into a hel and death. 

"Thou art ignorant of that wisdome of God, that only can save the 
nation; and having gathered some scraps of earthly knowledge from 
others, thy proud heart is Hfted up, and thou conceivest highly of thy 
self, as if thou art able to save the kingdome: and so presumest upon 
that which thou art not called unto." Pp. 45, 46. 

^^ Clarke Papers, II, 175, 176-177, 178, 183. Erbury, who thought 
the Agreement set up a new government, argued that what the country 
needed was not a constitutional settlement, but a committee of twelve 
or twenty-four to redress abuses forthwith according to God's Word. 
His attitude reminds one of a certain type of modern social reformer. 



NOVEMBER-MARCH, 1648/49 267 

the setting up of a new power, but rather a limiting 
and restraining of powers already established. 
Harrison assisted Ireton in answering the objection 
that the Agreement divested the Saints of power 
God had entrusted to them. The future Fifth 
Monarchy man confessed that in his belief the 
nation would not accept the Agreement. The fact 
that the Saints had proffered it would prove that 
they had not selfishly clutched at the power that 
God had put into their hands; but they might rest 
assured that God would retain the power where he 
had placed it.^^ In the attitude of the army council 
can be found sufficient reason why the Agreement 
of the People, once it was referred to the Rump, was 
not again heard of. 

In conclusion we may note any new developments 
in the political thought of the Levellers or of Ireton. 
First, the Agreement itself may be briefly sketched. 
As it came from the committee, it provided for the 
dissolution of the Rump and the election every two 
years of a Representative of 300 members by house- 
holder suffrage. ^^ In the intervals between the 
sittings of these biennial Representatives a Council 
of State was to be entrusted with power. The 
Agreement stated the powers of the Representative ; 
they extended to establishing courts and public 
offices, making and repealing laws, and in general 
to all matters not expressly reserved from them. 
The reservations were as follows. The Representa- 

^^ Clarke Papers, II, 176-177, 183. 

" For the first six months, only those who had signed the Agreement 
could vote; afterward, all householders not Royalists could do so. 



268 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

tive, while it could set up a form of public worship, 
had not authority over individuals in matters of 
religion. It could not impress for military service, 
appoint its members to lucrative public office, call 
any one to account for his past activity in the war, 
enact or continue any law or privilege that did not 
apply equally to all men, interfere with the execu- 
tion of the laws, or punish in the absence of a known 
and declared law. Above all the Representative 
had no power to alter the Agreement that created it. 

The army council made important changes in this 
Agreement. It struck out the clause forbidding 
compulsion in matters of religion, providing instead 
for toleration to all but papists and prelatists. It 
also dropped the provision for the abolition of all 
special privileges : it added a postscript distinguish- 
ing certain parts of the Agreement as fundamental 
and certain others as prescribed merely for con- 
venience. As the wording of the instrument for- 
bade taking away "any foundations of common 
right freedom and safety in the Agreement," the 
council of war by its amendments left the Repre- 
sentative free to alter the things that were merely 
"convenient. "^^ 

The reasons for several amendments to the Agree- 
ment are to be sought in the contrast between the 
political theories of the Levellers and of Ireton. 
Ireton's belief that Parliament's power should be 
limited only by the term for which the people elected 
it, induced him to press for the removal of clauses 

1^ The Agreement as amended is most conveniently studied in Gardi- 
ner, Constitutional Documents, p. 359. 



NOVEMBER-MARCH, 1648/49 269 

denying it specific powers. The chief restraint on 
its power that he removed was that prohibiting 
interference with freedom of worship. He urged 
this alteration on the ground that in the Jewish 
nation the civil magistrate had had jurisdiction over 
offenses of the first table. The argument, it will be 
seen, was purely Erastian.^^ 

It points to another article of Ireton's political 
faith. Personally he believed that the business of 
an Agreement was not to determine the extent of 
the magistrate's power; for by nature and divine 
right certain powers pertained to magistrates under 
any form of government. Rather he thought the 
Agreement should serve to indicate the hands in 
which this power should rest. Such a view of the 
instrument's function was different from that of 
John Goodwin, who was present at the conference, 
and declared that the question was of what powers 
the sovereign people saw fit to trust to their magis- 
trates.^^ However, Ireton himself recognized the 
fact that in form the Agreement was a designation 
of the powers that were or were not allowed the 
rulers by the people. 

This of course represented the idea of the Levellers. 
The Agreement marked a distinct advance in their 
political thought. They were no longer uncertain, 
as they had been in 1647, of the nature of the con- 
stitutional device they proposed. They regarded 

^^ Clarke Papers, II, 79-81, 101, 112. 

1^ Ibid., pp. 1 17, 118. He stated, however, that the people, having no 
coercive power in religion themselves, could not grant such a power to 
their magistrates. 



270 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

it as a solemn act of the people, not only designating 
the persons to rule, but designating also the powers 
that the rulers were to enjoy. More important 
than this, they were now ready with an answer to 
one question that puzzled them in 1647. The 
Agreement would have authority, first, because it 
originated in a body of men chosen by the people to 
establish a frame of government and to do nothing 
else; second, because the people by signing the 
frame of government gave a visible sign of their 
assent to it. 

However, it must be admitted that one provision 
of their Agreement indicated that the Levellers 
shrank from the full application of their broader 
theories. They expressly limited to the "well- 
affected" — to the Parliament party or a fraction of 
it — the right of choosing members of a constituent 
convention, assenting to the adoption of an Agree- 
ment, or voting for representatives under it. The 
Levellers still retained their faith in the power of 
reason to conquer; but no doubt they felt safer in 
putting the Agreement into operation before trust- 
ing to the naked power of reason. 

II. THE LEVELLERS DEFY THE COMMONWEALTH 

The Levellers, bitterly though they might resent 
the bad faith of the officers, could only protest. The 
joint committee had amused them during the weeks 
when they might have overset the policy of the army 
leaders. After Pride's Purge their scheme of play- 
ing off king or Parliament against the army was no 



NOVEMBER-MARCH, 1648/49 271 

longer possible. By publishing their draft of the 
Agreement of the People the Levellers might protest 
to the world of the duplicity practised against them, 
but after they had made this protest they could 
only await passively the outcome of the army's 
policy. In October and November their party was, 
comparatively speaking, closely knit by the prospect 
of success. In December it disappeared as an ac- 
tive political factor. 

Some of the Leveller leaders, perceiving the 
wreck of their political program, hastened to obtain 
what they could for themselves. Wildman and 
Sexby were thought by their old associates to have 
got their price from the Grandees. Lilburne him- 
self, by playing on the fears of the officers while 
they still felt none too secure, obtained the revenues 
of certain sequestered Durham estates in part com- 
pensation of his claims against the government. 
Toward the end of December he set out for Durham 
to secure his newly acquired property, and did not 
return till after the execution of the king. He 
frankly admitted the means by which he had secured 
settlement of his claims, saying that he had resolved 
to secure what was due him before the officers were 
so firm in the saddle that he must be their slave to 
obtain justice. ^^ 

He was, however, deeply disgusted with the politi- 
cal situation. He had refused office under the new 
government on the ground that he could not by 
accepting office acquiesce in a perpetual Parliament. 

*" Legal Fundamentall Liberties, pp. 46, 69; A Preparative To An Hue 
And Cry after Sir Arthur Haslerig, Sept. 13, 1649, E. 573 (16), pp. 18-35. 



272 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

Moreover, he felt that since the king was gone the 
other ' 'corrupt interests' ' of the kingdom — the clergy 
with their tithes, the lawyers with their fees, the 
corporation men with their monopolies of trade — 
were all sheltering with the Rump. The Rump 
itself, he thought, would last till the officers were 
ready to set up one of their number as king, when 
the shadow of republican forms would vanish 
away. 21 

The activity of the High Court of Justice was 
sufficient to stir up to action Lilburne's smolder- 
ing discontent with the government. The erecting 
of a special court to try three or four men and the 
arraigning of men without juries on capital charges 
were alike contrary to the best ideals and theories 
of English law. So also was the court's procedure 
in trying the Duke of Hamilton, the Earl of Holland 
and Lord Capel on charges for which they had 
already been sentenced. ^^ fhe belief that personal 
liberty was in danger induced Lilburne to rally the 
Leveller party for a new struggle with the Grandees. 

Lilburne had stated his objections to the court 
in declining a seat in it when it sat to try the king. 
He had refused to countenance what he regarded as 
an illegal fashion of trying a guilty man. He and 
his friends had been among the first to advocate 
stripping the king of the immunities that his station 
gave him ; but they would be the last to deprive any 
man born on English ground of the rights of an 
Englishman. Let the king be indicted in King's 

^' Legal Fundamentdl Liberties, pp. 46 ff., 68. 
^^Op. cit., p. 70 (mispaged). 



NOVEMBER-MARCH, 1648/49 273 

Bench under the general law of England assigning 
death as the penalty for murder. Thus treating the 
king of England as amenable to the law in an ordi- 
nary court like the meanest subject, would do more 
to root up belief in regal irresponsibility than would 
tacitly admitting that kings must be tried in an 
extraordinary way. Yet even so he condoned the 
action of the court in Charles's case because of the 
king's haughty assertion that he was accountable 
only to God. When, however, the High Court of 
Justice arraigned Hamilton, Holland, and Capel, 
three men who admitted their accountability to the 
law of England, Lilburne took alarm in good earnest; 
for he considered that injustice against any of them 
became a precedent to "destroy me, or the most 
righteous man in England, if the swaying faction 
pleased. "2^ 

At the moment he bestirred himself in the de- 
fense of the three peers. Lord Capel's gallant 
bearing, his cool pleading of the law and his demand 
for a jury completely won Lilburne's heart. He 
urged the prisoners to plead the lack of jurisdiction 
of the court and the Rump, and was bitterly disap- 
pointed when they submitted to stand trial. After 
they had taken this step he would not act as counsel 
for them, but he still stood ready to offer assistance 
with papers, books, or testimony.^^ 

By the time the High Court of Justice had com- 
pleted its work, Lilburne had renewed his former 
political activity. The first moves of his party can- 

2^ Legal Fundamentdl Liberties, pp. 46-47, 70. 
2* See Note on p. 276. 



274 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

not certainly be told. Probably they included an 
attempt to stir up the soldiery to demand the read- 
mission of agitators into the council of the army. 
As a result, in a council of war held February 22, 
the officers resolved on methods of checking peti- 
tions from the soldiers. They even proposed to ask 
Parliament for an ordinance making civilians who 
tampered with the soldiery amenable to the penal- 
ties of martial law.^^ 

Lilburne at once retorted to the council's demands 
by petitioning the Rump to throw off the domina- 
tion of the army and become a rightful representa- 
tive of England by doing the works of one. As 
means to this end he suggested the immediate 
enforcement of the Self-Denying Ordinance, the 
abolition of the Council of State and the High 
Court of Justice, and the promotion of a real Agree- 
ment of the People. This was the substance of 
Englands New-Chaines Discovered presented by Lil- 
burne to the Rump on February 26. ^^ 

Mercurius Pragmaticus was probably right in his 
surmise that the ruling powers would have allowed 
Lilburne short shrift, had it not been for Leveller 
activity in Hertfordshire. In close accord with 
Marten, the Levellers were again at work. In the 
market place of St. Albans soldiers read papers 
and petitions which came from Lilburne's pen. In 
Hampshire and Berkshire, Levellers stirred up the 
people to refuse payment of excise. In London sol- 

^ Englands New-Chaines Discovered, E. 545 (27). An officer was 
reported to have said that a court martial could hang twenty — either 
civilians or soldiers, apparently — ere a magistrate one. 



NOVEMBER-MARCH, 1648/49 275 

diers petitioned against the limitation that the 
council of war had set on their right of petition, 
and were promptly cashiered. ^^ 

March 24 the Levellers published The second 
Part Of Englands New-Chaines Discovered. It was 
a review of political events of 1647/48, drawing the 
moral that the Junto by its duplicity had frus- 
trated all hopes of a peaceful settlement. It accused 
the Junto of discriminating against officers like 
White, Rainsborough, and Reynolds who were 
known to sympathize with the Levellers. It inter- 
preted the Grandees' restriction of the press and 
their grasping for martial power over citizens as 
designed to pave their way to a military despotism. 
In conclusion, it assigned as the most probable 
remedy the restoration of representative govern- 
ment, in the army by the reestablishment of the 
council of the army, and in the nation by the carry- 
ing into effect of the Agreement of the People." 

The Levellers probably proposed to attain their 
end by forcing Parliament either to act justly or 
else to use such means for silencing them as would 

2' Mercurius Pragmaticus, Mar. 6-13, 13-20; Certain Occurrences, 
Mar. 9-16; The Hunting of the Foxes from New-Market and Triploe 
Heaths, Mar. 21, 1649, E 548 (7). 

Berks in the previous summer had been the scene of some escapades 
of Harry Marten, who had raised a regiment and horsed it by raids on 
private stables. Harry had ordered juries as the "supreame Authority 
and Majesty of England" to remain covered before judges, forbidden 
the yielding of homage at Courts Baron, and done various other un- 
precedented things. Pragmaticus, Aug. 15-22, 29, 1648; Commons 
Journal, V, 673, 676. May 1-8, 1649, Pragmaticus hinted that Marten 
was drifting from the Levellers to the Grandees. 

" E. 548 (16). 



276 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

strip it of all defense before the people. ^^ Certainly 
the Junto acted promptly on the Levellers' provo- 
cation. March 28 heavy guards of soldiers arrest- 
ed Lilburne, Walwyn, Overton, and Prince, and 
marched them with all military caution to the 
Council of State at Derby House. There the 
prisoners refused to incriminate themselves by 
answering questions. Lilburne denied that the 
Rump by its members could legally exercise judi- 
cial powers in the High Court of Justice. Through 
the keyhole of an ante-chamber door, he heard 
Cromwell punctuating by thumps of his fist his con- 
viction that the Council had no way to deal with 
"these men" but to break them in pieces. A 
motion to bail them was overruled by one vote, 
and the four were committed to the Tower.^^ The 
Levellers, finding that the Independents would not 
adopt their program, had turned to their old politi- 
cal methods to overthrow the Commonwealth 
government; and the Junto had lifted the gauntlet 
that the Levellers had thrown down. 

NOTE 

LrLBURNE AND LORD CaPEL 

Lilburne's account of his proffer of assistance to the men arraigned 
before the High Court of Justice has especial interest in that it affords 
the opportunity of checking the reUabihty of Lilburne's numerous auto- 
biographical statements. At first blush, even in a generally reliable 
source, a commoner's narrative of his intimacies with peers might be 
regarded with suspicion. One would be inclined to presume that what 
actually happened was that the commoner had pressed his company 
and counsel on the peer and perhaps had been mildly rebuffed. Accord- 

^^ Strength out ofWeaknesse, Oct. 19, 1649, E. 575 (18), p. 5. 
" The Picture Of The Councel 0} State, pp. 7, 8, 12, 14, 15, 18. 



NOVEMBER-MARCH, 1648/49 277 

ingly, an independent confirmation of such an account adds very much 
to the confidence we can place in statements on similar authority. Such 
a confirmation is offered by the following from the Beaufort Mss. 
{Hist. Mss. Comm., 12th Report, App., Pt. IX, p. Zi.): 

"Advice for L. C. 

"To insist upon your banishment and to make that argument valid, 
mention Seyres case declared in Cook's Hist, in his 3rd booke the 104 
cap. 230 P. Then desire that Col. John Lilborne may have leave to 
declare the proceedings in his tryall at Oxford. If this prove not suf- 
ficient then desire the judgment of the Parliament may be had as to 
this point of the law, and for the obtaining of this their shall be a petition 
readie drawne to be delivered to the Parhament." Apparently this 
originated with some one who rejected Lilburne's advice to plead to the 
jurisdiction of the Rump, yet deemed his testimony and support of 
value. 

Lilbume mentions such an incident in the case of Holland, probably 
confusing the men for the moment. He told Capel that he should be 
ashamed either as a king's man, a peer, or a freeman of England to 
acknowledge the Rump. Legal Fundamentall Liberties, p. 73. 



CHAPTER IX 

The Triumph of the Commonwealth 

I. the crushing of disaffection in the army 

T^OR the eight months next after the arrest of 
■*■ Lilburne and his associates, the Common- 
wealth government found itself confronted with 
the determined opposition of the Levellers. Their 
attitude was a standing challenge of the Rump's 
legality — one that could not be ignored, and at the 
same time could hardly be accepted. For the sake 
of appearances, civilians refusing to acknowledge 
the legality of the government could not be dealt 
with by martial law. Nor could they be dealt 
with by civil process; for the position of the Rump 
was revolutionary rather than legal. Every prece- 
dent of four and a half centuries of recorded English 
law acquitted the Leveller leaders of the crime of 
sedition. Yet under the forms of that law, the 
Levellers must be tried if tried they were to be ; and 
not the wisest lawyer at the service of the Council 
of State could say how far three months' enact- 
ments had repealed those forms, or give assur- 
ance that no technicality would arise under them 
to make convictions impossible. The government 
hesitated till October, when it tried Lilburne for 
sedition. While it was decisively defeated in that 
trial, however, its military successes had so strength- 

278 



TRIUMPH OF THE COMMONWEALTH 279 

ened its position as a government de facto that it 
could safely rest its claims de jure. 

The problem of disaffection in the army, while 
not so much complicated by legal difficulties, was 
more pressing. In March the Junto had quenched 
the spark of rebellion among the civilian Levellers; 
but the army was full of combustible material. 
The soldiers were murmuring that detaching forces 
for the Irish campaign was a violation of the Solemn 
Engagement ; for that Engagement had pledged the 
army not to divide before the liberties of England 
were secure. Why, asked the soldiers, should they 
conquer another nation at the behest of the men 
who had enslaved England to a government by 
will and not by law? Emphatically the reestablish- 
ment of the representative Council of the Army, 
before the campaign in Ireland was initiated, was 
the least security for the preservation of the nation's 
liberties that they could demand.^ 

Such reasonings, when joined with the perennial 
disputes about pay and arrears, soon produced 
trouble. April 24, a dispute over pay ended in 
thirty men of Whalley's regiment seizing their 
colors. They submitted to discipline again only 
on the personal orders of Cromwell and Fairfax. 
Three days later five of them were cashiered, and 
a sixth, Robert Lockyer by name, was shot.^ 

The choice of such a scapegoat of military dis- 
cipline awakened forebodings in men attached to 
the liberties of England. Lockyer was one of the 

^ See Note on p. 300. 

2 A Modest Narrative of Intelligence, Apr. 28-May 5. 



280 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

men of fine patriotism who had fought through the 
war with an eye single to the removal of the "Nor- 
man Yoke. " While awaiting his execution, his one 
regret was that he died merely for a petty dispute 
over pay, and not for the ideals on behalf of which 
he had risked his life during seven years. He met 
his death protesting in Lilburne's manner that 
condemning men by a court martial in time of 
peace was murder. The Levellers made his funeral 
a solemn protest against such applications of mar- 
tial law. Thousands of men and women walked 
in procession as Lockyer's body was borne to the 
grave with all the honors of war.' 

Within a week several regiments were in open 
mutiny. The men of Scroop's regiment at Salis- 
bury, fearing that they would be coerced into the 
Irish campaign, listened to the solicitations of 
Leveller agents. On May ii they mutinied and 
chose new officers.* Four troops of Ireton's regi- 
ment rendezvoused with them. A few days be- 
fore, the disreputable William Thompson had 
gathered a few scattered soldiers at Salisbury. 
There he put forth a ringing manifesto worthy of a 
better man, announcing his purpose of delivering 

^ The Army's Martyr, E. 552 (11), pp. 6, 10-12. Irritation at 
Lockyer's execution had much to do with the mutiny. Englands Stattd- 
ard Advanced, May 6, 1649, E. 553 (2); A Full Narrative Of All the 
proceedings betweetie .... the Lord Fairfax and the Mutineers, 
May 18, 1649, E. 555 (27), p. 10. 

* The men said that the oflBcers kept the troops separated, telling 
each that the others had agreed to go; when the privates proved obsti- 
nate they were ordered to pasture their horses in fields two miles from 
their quarters. The Levellers {Falsly so called) Vindicated, Aug. 21, 
1649, E. 571 (11), p. 2. 



TRIUMPH OF THE COMMONWEALTH 281 

the magistracy of England from the power of the 
sword, and of procuring the establishment of a new 
representative by an Agreement of the People.* 

Meanwhile Fairfax and Cromwell with loyal 
regiments marched against Scroop's men. They 
sent before them as emissary to the mutineers that 
Major White who had been expelled from the army 
in 1647 for asserting that England was under no 
law but that of the sword. May 13, White set out 
with three companions. On that day and the next, 
he was with the mutineers and conducting a cor- 
respondence with Fairfax relative to their submis- 
sion. The men insisted on the reestablishment of 
the Council of the Army, though White appears to 
have thought they might possibly have been content 
with less.^ 

Fairfax, learning that the revolted regiment was 
trying to join Harrison's, which was also in mutiny, 
decided on May 14 to wait no longer.^ Early on 
the morning of the 15th, he surprised the mutineers 
at Burford. They yielded on some assurance of 
safety; but the commanders made the lives of 
cornets Den and Thompson, and two corporals a 
blood-offering to discipline. Den's repentance was 

^ Englands Standard Advanced, May 6, 1649, E 553 (2). 

^ Supra, p. 185. A Declaration Of the Proceedings of His Excellency 
The Lord General Fairfax, May 22, 1649, E. 556 (1); A Full Narrative 
Of All the Proceedings betweene .... the Lord Fairfax and the 
Mutineers, which contains the naen's declarations and letters to Fair- 
fax; Francis White, A True Relation Of The Proceedings In The Businesse 
of Burford, Sept. 27, 1649, E. 574 (26). 

''A Declaration says that Fairfax resolved to attack only after the 
leaders of the regiment had rebuffed Colonel Scroop, and refused to 
allow a declaration of Fairfax to be read to the men. Pp. 7-8. 



282 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

SO edifying as to procure his reprieve.^ Thompson 
merely admitted that God had not owned his ways. 
The two corporals died defiant. The rest of the 
soldiery, after an exhortation by Cromwell, pro- 
fessed their penitence and were reprieved. 

The surprise at Burford was the end of the mu- 
tiny. Other scattered risings were easily put down. 
In one of these William Thompson who had 
escaped when his irregular levies had been dispersed 
by Colonel Reynolds, ended his desperate life by 
a desperate death. The ruthless resolution of the 
officers had prevailed against the indecision of the 
men. As it was the custom of the day for small 
men to profess their penitence when their faults, 
real or supposed, were pointed out to them by their 
social superiors, the penitence of the mutineers 
should be taken as indicating not so much their 
real consciousness of guilt as the essentially aristo- 
cratic spirit of the age. 

Cromwell and Fairfax can hardly escape criticism 
for the measures they took against the mutineers. 
In the first place, there is a question whether the 
terms on which the men yielded at Burford did not 
preclude military executions. The Levellers point- 
ed to the facts that Cornet Thompson had sur- 
rendered while at the head of two unbroken troops, 
and that several parties had barricaded them- 

^ He later published a pamphlet, The Levellers Designe Discovered (E. 
556 (11), May 24, 1649), deprecating the mutiny. The Levellers be- 
lieved he had betrayed the men to Fairfax, by posting an officer on 
guard who forsook his duty, and thereby made the surprise possible. 
The Levellers .... Vindicated, ^t-T; The Declaration Of the Prince 
of Wales, May 22, 1649, E. 556 (7). 



TRIUMPH OF THE COMMONWEALTH 283 

selves In their quarters. Was it likely that men in a 
position to defend themselves would surrender with- 
out security for their lives ?^ Again, it is not clear 
that the surprise at Burford was accomplished with- 
out a breach of faith. Cromwell had dispatched 
White on his mission, bidding him assure the 
men that force would not follow on their heels. ^^ 
Accounts favorable to the officers or to the men 
differed as to the pledges White gave the mutineers 
for their security while the negotiations were in 
progress. The men's story was that he had re- 
peated Cromwell's phrase; this in itself is not un- 
likely. At all events, the course White pursued 
while with the mutineers — drawing petitions to 
Fairfax for them, etc.— would naturally have en- 
couraged them in the belief that the officers meant 
to employ persuasion rather than force. Above all, 
the fact that Cromwell made a man of known 
independence in politics his messenger might well 
have led the men to infer that White was to play 
the role of arbiter. ^^ 

After all, the question whether at Burford Crom- 
well and Fairfax were guilty of breach of faith is 
comparatively unimportant beside another. Did 

* A Full Narrative, p. 3, says that two troops commanded by Thomp- 
son jdelded on promise of mercy. The Lavllers . . . Vindicated, 
p. 7. 

1" White, A True Relation. 

" The Levellers .... Vindicated, p. 5. A Declaration says 
that he was told to demand immediate submission; it says, further, that 
he told the men not to take from his presence with them any assurance 
of their safety against attack. Pp. 12, 13. The day before the sur- 
prise White had written Fairfax, advising him to suspend proceedings 
against the men for the moment. A Full Narrative, p. 11. 



284 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

they have a legal or moral right to sit in judgment 
on the men whom they treated as mutinous soldiers? 
The men certainly had good grounds for thinking 
that their Solemn Engagement remained unfulfilled 
so long as the liberties of England were intrusted 
to the arbitrary powers of military officers ; nor did 
they lack precedent for attempting by mutiny to 
extort from their officers freedom for the nation. 
Two years before, the officers in the name of Eng- 
land's liberties had set the army in array against 
the Parliament to which they owed their commis- 
sions. In principle, the action of 1647 was identical 
with that of 1649. Moreover, Lilburne had put a 
very reasonable interpretation on the Solemn En- 
gagement when he pronounced that it replaced 
military discipline by a representative government. 
If his interpretation be accepted, Cromwell and 
Fairfax were not the dispensers of martial justice, 
but rather revolutionary assassins. 

The defenders of the two generals met this last 
argument by asserting that the soldiers had of their 
own will given up their representative government 
and put themselves again under the military disci- 
pline of the officers. The various regiments, it was 
said, had petitioned that their agitators be sent 
back to them. The Levellers denied that any such 
petitions had ever in good faith been framed and 
presented by the soldiers. Apparently none were 
ever printed in answer to their challenge. ^^ 

^^ The Levellers .... Vindicated, p. 9; See Green 6* Blue, See 
Which Speaks True. Or Reason contending with Treason, June 6, 1649, 
E. 559 (1); An Impeachment Of High Treason, p. 3; The Discoverer, June 
2, 1649, E. 558 (2), pp. 5, 6. 



TRIUMPH OF THE COMMONWEALTH 285 

Justification for Cromwell's course must be sought 
in expediency rather than right. There was danger 
that the revolt might spread; and Royalists were 
ready to join with the Levellers in the hope of turn- 
ing the mutiny into a restoration of Charles II. 
Although the demands of the soldiers were such as 
might without immediate danger have been granted, 
in the background was the peril of an Agreement 
of the People set up by mutinous soldiers. Crom- 
well understood as well as any Leveller that the 
idea underlying an Agreement forbade its origin 
in violence ; an Agreement as fundamental law must 
come, if it came at all, "without fraud or surprise." 
Cromwell honestly desired at least a part of the 
liberties of England as defined by the Levellers. 
But, always an opportunist in his pursuit of them, 
he was continually tempted to undertake to reach 
them by the primrose path of arbitrary power. 
Unlike the Levellers, he did not see that those lib- 
erties were attainable only by law; but, again 
unlike the Levellers, he saw when they were unat- 
tainable by law. Because he saw this, necessity 
drove him to crush the Levellers in 1649, as in 1647 

In A Full Relation Of The Proceedings at the Rendezvous of tJtat Brigade 
of the Army that was held in Corkhush field, there is a petition from 
Whalley's regiment recalling the "new agents" chosen in October — but 
apparently it implied the continuance of the former agitators in the 
Coimcil of the Army. Denne's account does not date specifically the 
time at which the agitators were recalled. Lilburne in An Impeachment 
Of High Treason, p. 3, supposes that the event that Denne referred to 
took place in August. His account and that in Sea Green &• Blue im- 
ply that such petitions had been in circulation, but that they were 
fraudulent and did not represent the wishes of any considerable part 
of the army. 



286 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

it drove him to countenance the army's resistance 
to established authority. In 1649 he saw that the 
Commonwealth was the only possible government 
except monarchy ; he did not see that the Common- 
wealth itself could not endure. 

II. THE TRIAL AND ACQUITTAL OF LILBURNE 

The imprisonment of the four Leveller leaders 
gave London intervals of excitement during the 
whole summer. No overt acts can be traced to the 
Leveller party as a unit, but a series of pamphlets 
by individuals made a constant ferment, and may 
have caused two so-called Leveller revolts. Peti- 
tions with signatures numbered by thousands 
poured in on behalf of the prisoners. Counter 
petitions appeared against them. The apprentices 
of the ward of Cripplegate Without offered their 
"Thankful Acknowledgment" of the beneficent 
activity of the four, and invited apprentices in 
other wards to cooperate by committees. The Re- 
solved Apprentices of Bridge Within got up a 
counter memorial against the Thankful Acknowl- 
edgers.^^ Anabaptist ministers made haste to dis- 
claim all responsibility for Englands New-Chaines, 

13 669 f. 14 (30), (31), (32), (27). Mercurius Pragmatktis, Apr. 24- 
May 1, says that ten thousand women signed a petition. The Moderate, 
Mar. 27-Apr. 3, says that ten thousand had signed a petition of Apr. 
2. Gardiner gives a figure of 80,000 for it. Commonwealth and Pro- 
tectorate, I, 47. The same number of the Moderate says it is reported 
that "40,000 had signed and would avow" Englands New-Chaines Dis- 
covered. The figure is as high a one as is ever mentioned in connection 
with petitions, with one exception. 



TRIUMPH OF THE COMMONWEALTH 287 

and addressed to the House a memorial stating that, 
although the obnoxious pamphlet had been read in 
their churches, they themselves were innocent of 
any ill design. ^^ Seven authors joined to produce 
a pamphlet, Walwins Wiles, in which, charitably 
dismissing Lilburne and Prince as misled, they 
poured out the vials of their wrath on Walwyn. 
The book's charges have been considered elsewhere. 
The four regarded it and the memorial as proof 
that ministerial jealousy was responsible in great 
measure for the proceedings against them.^^ 

The four prisoners engaged in pamphlet skirmishes 
with their enemies. Overton brought out a De- 
fyance Of The Act of Pardon, written in a coarse and 
heavy style and flavored with the similes of the 
bull ring. It so far shocked the Levellers that 
Overton addressed to them a defense of his license 
of speech. ^^ Prince published a book to repel the 
insinuations that he and Lilburne had been led 
into mischief by Overton and Walwyn. ^^ Walwyn 
and his friends wrote three or four pamphlets 

" Apr. 3, 1649, E. 549 (14). Lilburne claimed this did not represent 
the wishes of their congregations, but was merely their own device to 
which the authorities impelled them. The Picture Of The Councel of 
State, p. 20 (2d ed.). 

'^ Supra, p. 243. Walwyns Just Defence. 

^^ Overton's Defyance Of The Act of Pardon; Or, The Copy of a Letter 
to the Citizens usually meeting at the Whale-bone in Lothhury, July 4, 1649, 
E. 562 (26). Overton defended it in The Baiting Of The Great Btdl 
of Bashan, July 16, 1649, E. 565 (2). For the coarseness of the original 
it may be said that it apparently furnished an idea for A New BjiU- 
Bayting, Aug. 7, 1649, E. 568 (6), apparently by the same author as 
The Man in the Moone, a filthy Royalist journal. 

^^ The Silken Independents Snare Broken, June 20, 1649, E. 560 (24). 



288 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

defending his character against his personal 
enemies. ^^ 

Lilburne's writings were far more daring than 
any of these. In June he published The Legal 
Fundamentall Liberties Of The People of England, 
Revived, Asserted, and Vindicated, an attack on the 
legal position of the Rump and the Council of 
State. August lo, An Impeachment Of High Trea- 
S071 Against Oliver Cromwell followed; it dealt with 
the episode of January, 1647/8. September 13, Lil- 
burne issued a Preparative To An Hue And Cry 
after Sir Arthur Haslerig, declaring that by his 
tyrannies and betrayals he was become "a Pole 
Cat, a Fox, and a Wolf {as a Subverter and destroyer 
of humane society), aiid may and ought to be knockt 
on the head therefore.'' ^^ The particular occasion for 
this was Haselrig's detention of Lilburne's rents 
from Durham; as also some stories of his plots 
against Lilburne's life that John had greedily swal- 
lowed in spite of their manifest improbability. 

Two anonymous publications were even more 
radical. One of them, An Out Cry, was a bitter 
arraignment of the methods used in suppressing 
the uprising of May and of the government's tyr- 
anny. It also advocated the Agreement of the 
People and suggested an organization to promote 
its adoption. The second, The Remonstrance Of 
many Thousands, of September 21, announced an 
armed defiance of the tyrants at Westminster, a 
refusal to pay taxes, and a promotion of an Agree- 

'» Supra, pp. 245-250. 
"E. 573 (16). 



TRIUMPH OF THE COMMONWEALTH 289 

ment of the People. It also advocated reducing 
Parliament members to the estates they possessed 
in 1640, and confiscating the remainder of their 
property as illicit gain. The authority to be as- 
signed the pamphlet is sufficiently indicated by a 
postscript stating it was" already signed with 98,064 
hands and more to be added daily; so soon as we 
can give notice hereof to our Afflicted Brethren in 
all the Counties of England and Wales, "^o 

No direct connection can be traced between 
these pamphlets and two so-called Leveller uprisings 
that occurred in the course of the summer. One of 
these uprisings took place among the miners of 
Derbyshire who became discontented with the con- 
ditions of their labor; the miners or a few factious 
persons for them, according to the account one 
adopts, threatened resort to the law of nature, and 
finally in approved Leveller fashion declared for the 
Agreement, the Petition of September 11, etc.^^ 

A second uprising came to a head early in Sep- 
tember in the garrison at Oxford. "What their 
intent was," said Pragrnaticus , " I think they do not 
well know themselves." Arrears of pay appeared 
to be one grievance; but the men also adopted 
the usual Leveller political proposals, such as a 
representative army council and a new Parliament; 
they further demanded the restoration of the king. 

"^^ An Out Cry Of the Youngmen and Apprentices of London, E. 572 
(13), Sept. 1, 1649; The Remonstrance Of many Thousands .... 
in behalf of Themselves and those Called Levellers, E. 574 (15), Sept. 21, 
1649. 

" The Moderate, Aug. 21-28; A Modest Narrative of Intelligence, Aug. 
25-Sept. 1, 1649; The Moderate Messenger, Sept. 10-17. 



290 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

The Levellers proper were Inclined to hold aloof. 
A few from London went down to Oxford to guide 
the mutineers so far as possible; but Lilburne and 
his friends had nothing to do with the affair. With 
ignorant men only to manage its councils, the 
mutiny was speedily crushed. Two men were shot, 
six sentenced to run the gauntlet, and others cash- 
iered. Seven were remanded to the civil courts. ^^ 
Probably these disorders convinced the author- 
ities that they must take some action to stop 
the stream of radical pamphlets. They had their 
choice of two courses: to conciliate Lilburne and 
his friends, or to arraign the Leveller leaders for se- 
dition and so to vindicate the authority of the Com- 
monwealth. First, they tried conciliation. On the 
14th of September they had Lilburne brought before 
Attorney-General Prideaux. Lilburne was defiant, 
denying that Prideaux or the Parliament itself 
possessed any legal authority that he was bound to 
own." A week later the authorities probably cast 
out hints of the possibility of a conference between 
the government and the Leveller chiefs. Then 

"2 The Moderate, Sept. 11-18, Sept. 18-25; Mercurius Pragmaticus, 
Sept. 11-18, Sept. 17-24, Sept. 18-25; The Man in the Moone, Sept. 
12-19; Kingdoms Intelligencer, Sept. 18-25; Prince Charles Proclaimed 
King, Sept. 14, 1649, E. 573 (21); Prince Charles His Message To The 
Levellers in the West, Sept. 13, 1649, E. 573 (18); A Great And Blovdy 
Fight Neer Droghedah, Sept. 12, 1649, E. 573 (15). 

^' Lilburne's account of this interview is in Strength out of Weaknesse. 
There is a briefer account purporting to come from a person present 
at the conversation, in The Man in the Moone, Sept. 19-26. See also 
Mercurius Elencticus, Sept. 17-24, and The Moderate, Sept. 11-18. 
Lilburne's account is undoubtedly amplified, but on the main points 
seems reliable. 



TRIUMPH OF THE COMMONWEALTH 291 

they tried to frighten Lilburne into submission by- 
sending men to warn him, under the guise of friend- 
ship, that he was inviting his own ruin. Lilbume's 
reported answer was certainly characteristic of the 
man; he threatened one of them "to kick him out 
if he came again to abuse him."^^ 

Finally, the Council of State resolved to put to 
test the defiant attitude of the Levellers toward 
the government by bringing Lilburne to trial. A 
special commission of oyer and terminer issued, 
and on the 24th of October the grand jury found a 
true bill against Lilburne. The indictment charged 
him with seeking to subvert the government and 
bring the Commons into infamy with all good 
Englishmen; with seditiously printing and publish- 
ing that the government was arbitrary and tyran- 
nical, and with seducing soldiers from their obe- 
dience. The specific facts charged were passages 
from his writings, An Impeachment Of High Treason, 
The Legal Fundamentall Liberties, An Hue And Cry, 
A Salva Libertate, and An Out Cry,"^^ and conversa- 
tions with private soldiers. 

Lilburne now offered to compromise with the 
authorities. He proposed in a letter of October 20 
that he choose one judge from the twelve in West- 
minster Hall, and his adversaries another, the two 
judges to pass on the law at issue in his case. 
October 22, his brother presented a letter from him 
in which he offered within six months to remove to 

^* Mercurius Elencticus, Sept. 17-24; Fragmaikus, Sept. 18-25. 
^ The Triall, Of Lieut . Collondl John Lilburne, Clement Walker, E. 
584 (9), pp. 56 fE. 



292 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

the West Indies, provided that the government 
would assist any who wished to accompany him, 
and were financially unable to do so. On the eve 
of his trial Lilburne even went so far as to ask for 
a delay, that he might endeavor to convince himself 
of the lawfulness of the Commonwealth government. 
The government probably gained courage from 
Lilburne's successive concessions, and pushed on 
the trial. 2® 

Lilburne, however, for a month past had staked 
his life on a desperate game. In his interviews with 
Prideaux he had acted a part from beginning to 
end ; and up to the time of his trial he had planned 
his actions to induce in government the belief that 
he would reaffirm in court his views of the Rump's 
illegality and deny the court's jurisdiction. Were 
he to do so, the government would be rid of him 
at the price of the obloquy that would attach to it 
for condemning him by default. But long before 
his trial he had decided not to embrace so easy a 
martyrdom. If by address he could force his ac- 
quittal from the court, it would damage the govern- 
ment's prestige at least as much as would sentenc- 
ing him to death for refusing to plead. The latter 
course would convict the government of tyranny, 
but the former would convict it of inefficiency." 

^^The Innocent Man's first Proffer, Oct. 20, 1649, 669 f. 14 (83); 
The Inmcent Man's second-Prof er, Oct. 22, 1649, 669 f. 14 (85). 

Colonel Robert Lilburne stood closely by his brother during the 
trial. The Triall, Of Lieut. Collonell John Lilburne, passim. 

^'' L. Colonel John Lilburne revived, Mar. 27, 1653, E. 689 (32), p. 4. 
He says of the method of his defense "of which, I neither did nor durst 
tell any man or wonaan in the world what was my intentions, till I 



TRIUMPH OF THE COMMONWEALTH 293 

Therefore, on the first day of his trial Lilburne 
played his game cautiously. He wrangled with 
the judges as to the meaning of the various forms — 
holding up his hand, pleading to the indictment, 
saying that he would be tried by God and his 
country. The judges, who were none too well 
assured of their personal safety in the court room, 
were visibly relieved when they were past these 
technicalities and there was no likelihood of their 
having to condemn him without a trial. ^^ 

Lilburne, however, immediately got into a second 
wrangle when the judges evaded his demand for 
counsel, and for a copy of the indictment. He railed 
at the court as a pack of unjust and unrighteous 
judges. That the judges permitted such language 
from a prisoner shows how terrifying the whole 
business was to all officially concerned. Thus, 
when Lilburne accused Prideaux of whispering with 
the judges on the bench, Prideaux thought it nec- 
essary to assure him that the conversation had 
nothing to do with his case. He accused Prideaux 
of having consulted with the judges before the 

came to the Barr; least my adversaries should get a hint of it, who I 
beleeve never expected but I would have dealt with them upon a rant- 
ing high-flown score, in totally denying their jurisdiction, and the 
authoritie of those that constituted them but through the strength of 
the Almightie, I went beyond their expectations, and gave them such 
a cuff under their other eare, as I beHeeve they wil never throughlie 
shake of the smart and paine of it, whilest Cromwels beastlie & most 
grosselie abominable Tiraimie lasteth." 

It might be added in corroboration that the tone of Strength out of 
Weaknesse suggests that Lilburne was deliberately speaking in a "high- 
flown" strain. 

28 The TriaU, Of Lieut. CoUoneU John LUbtirne, pp. 1-30. 



294 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

trial; they endeavored mildly to explain. They 
patiently, even anxiously, reasoned with the pris- 
oner and implored him to be quiet. There was a 
world of meaning in Keble's remark: "We are 
willing to die too!" when Lilburne had thundered 
out that, if the judges wished to murder him, they 
might. The learned judge, knowing that the trial 
was a political one, and that figuratively the Lev- 
eller party stood at the bar, saw a large part of that 
party disposed about the court room in person, and 
feared for the worst.^^ 

By the next day some one had apparently stif- 
fened the resolution of the judges. They began 
by vigorously ordering Lilburne's solicitor, Sprat, 
and Colonel Robert Lilburne, out of the bar where 
they were standing with the prisoner. Lilburne 
pleaded in vain that the law allowed any bystander 
in a court of justice to advise the prisoner or speak 
for him; he asked in vain for counsel. For answer 
the judges hastened the calling of the jury. The 
jury was chosen. Sprat and Colonel Robert guiding 
the prisoner in the use of his challenges, despite the 
angry protests of the judges. ^° 

It was now the time for Prideaux to ofifer the 
state's evidence. Apparently he had been over- 
sanguine, or else confident that Lilburne, by refusing 
to plead, would make evidence unnecessary; for 
Lilburne at once began to find serious technical 
flaws in the testimony. First, Prideaux endeavored 
to prove that Lilburne was the author oi An Out 

^^ The Triall, Of Lieut. Collonell John Lilburne, pp. 30-44. 
*°Ibid., pp. 50, 53. 



TRIUMPH OF THE COMMONWEALTH 295 

Cry, by the evidence of Thomas Newcombe, a 
printer who had been taken in the act of printing 
it. Newcombe testified that Lilburne had been 
present when the proof was read. But Lilburne 
by cross-questioning brought out the fact that he 
had merely held a printed proof in his hand, and 
had not corrected it. Next, Prideaux proved by 
three soldiers that Lilburne had given one of them 
a copy oi An Out Cry. Similarly witnesses testified 
that Lilburne had sent a copy oi An Impeachment 
Of High Treason to Colonel Ayres.^^ 

Prideaux further tried to fix on Lilburne the 
fact that he had delivered to Colonel Francis West, 
lieutenant of the Tower, a Salva Libertate, denying 
the lawfulness of the government. '^ Lilburne, how- 
ever, completely overset the pertinence of this 
evidence by questioning West as to the exact place 
in the Tower at which the Salva Libertate had been 
delivered, and by adducing a bit of antiquarian 
legal lore to the effect that the place named lay 
outside the liberties of London, and hence outside 
the cognizance of a London jury!** 

Prideaux's servants and Colonel West then testified 
that Lilburne in his interview with Prideaux had 
acknowledged his authorship of A Preparative To An 
Hue And Cry; Prideaux used this testimony to 
prove also Lilburne's authorship of Legal Funda- 
mentall Liberties and An Impeachment Of High 
Treason, as Lilburne had acknowledged both books 

'1 The Triall, Of Lieut. Collonell John Lilburne, pp. 70-76. 

*^Ibid., pp. 76-78. On the occasion of his interview with Prideaux. 



296 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

in the Hue And Cry. Lilburne contented himself 
for the time by establishing the fact that he had 
owned An Hue And Cry, "Saving the printers' 
erratias which are many." Prideaux completed 
his case by reading the treason acts of May 14 and 
July 17 and the treasonable passages from the 
books — which last, says one account, pleased the 
people as would have done a play of Ben Jonson's! 
Stranger trial was never on English ground.'* 

The time had now come for Lilburne's defense; 
and the court refused him time to collect himself 
or even to examine his notes or books. The fall of 
a scaffolding that served as a stand for the spec- 
tators who thronged the court, seemed almost a 
providential dispensation; for the accident caused 
such confusion that before the trial proceeded Lil- 
burne had his defense ready. He began by assuring 
the jurymen that they were judges of fact and of 
law as well, the judges being but a set of Norman 
intruders. Second, he asserted that the treason 
statutes required two witnesses to each act. When 
Prideaux, in summing up, undertook to correct him, 
there was the inevitable wrangle as to how far 
earlier statutes to this effect had been repealed by 
the act of Philip and Mary; Lilburne came out a 
little the better. On the ground that the proof- 
sheet he had seen had not been proved a true copy 
oi An Out Cry, Lilburne ruled out Newcombe's 
testimony ; as for the soldier to whom he had given 
the book, Lilburne reminded the jury that this was 

" The Triall, Of Lieut. CoUonell John Lilburne, pp. 80-113. Truth's 
Victory Over Tyrants And Tyranny, Nov. 16, 1649, E. 579 (12), p. 4. 



TRIUMPH OF THE COMMONWEALTH 297 

not a proof of authorship. On the grounds already 
stated, he threw out the testimony of the lieu- 
tenant of the Tower; he found similar flaws in the 
jurisdiction of the court over his offense in sending 
Ayres the Impeachment. He broke the whole force 
of the testimony of Prideaux's servants, by alleging 
that the treasonable passages m An Hue And Cry 
might, for all that had been proved, have been 
printers' erratas, and hence not owned by him ! He 
concluded his review of the testimony by asserting 
that the prosecution had not proved that the books 
in question post-dated the Commonwealth's treason 
acts. '5 

In closing, he complained of the injustice of trying 
him for acts committed under the irritation of an 
illegal imprisonment. He adroitly recalled the 
usage his demand for counsel had received, and 
ended by urging the jury to take the decision of 
the law into their own hands and find him not guilty, 
the people crying "Amen." There was nothing 
notable in Prideaux's closing argument, and the 
case went to the jury.^® 

The jury, after being out about an hour, returned 
with a verdict of not guilty. ". . . immediatly," 
says the contemporary account of the trial, "the 
whole multitude of People in the Hall, for joy of the 
Prisoners acquittal gave such a loud and unanimous 
shout, as is beleeved, was never heard in Guild-hall, 
which lasted for about halfe an hour without inter- 
mission : which made the Judges for fear, turne pale, 

36 The Triall, Of Lieut. Collonell John Lilburne, pp. 120-132. 
38 Ibid., pp. 133-150. 



298 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

and hange down their heads; but the Prisoner 
stood silent at the Barre, rather more sad in his 
countenance then he was before."" The re- 
joicing in the court spread throughout London.^' 
The Leveller had won his desperate game; and per- 
haps nothing bears witness to the character of the 
man as does his imperturbable conduct in the hour 
of victory. He was for the moment remanded to 
the Tower, according to Pragmaticus, while the 
Council of State considered the advisability of court- 
martialling him.*** It is very unlikely that the 
government ever seriously contemplated affording 
such proof of the validity of Lilburne's strictures 
on it. It released him with his companions on 
November 8. 

The criticism of Lilburne's own day on the method 
of his defense foreshadowed the criticism of certain 
modem historians.^" His contemporaries took him 
to task for laying hold of legal technicalities and 
quibbling with the evidence adduced to prove he 
had written books that bore his name on the title 
page. The criticism is but slightly justified. He 
protested, it is true, against the employment of 
certain legal technicalities against him; but they 
were technicalities that proved fatal traps for the 
unwary. We should remember that a plea of 
guilty or not guilty to an indictment barred all 
opportunity of objecting to its form. Seventeenth- 

^^ The Triall, Of Lieut. Collonell John Lilburne, p. 151. 
38 The Upright Mans Vindicatioti, Aug. 5, 1653, E. 708 (22), p. 15. 
3' Mercurius Pragmaticus, Oct. 29-Nov. 5. 

*° Gardiner, History of the Commonwealth and Protectorate, I, 186. 
A Letter Of Due Censure, and Redargvtion to Lieut. Col. John Lilburne. 
June 21, 1650, E. 603 (14). 



TRIUMPH OF THE COMMONWEALTH 299 

century courts made short work of men who failed 
to quibble over forms they did not understand. On 
the other hand, Lilburne's demands for counsel, 
for a copy of his indictment, and for time to send 
for witnesses are commonplaces of justice today. 
Even the flaws that he picked in the state's case to 
a layman do not appear far-fetched. 

It is not easy to see what other line of defense 
Lilbume had open to him. Holding the govern- 
ment of England arbitrary and illegal, as he did, he 
had openly proclaimed his opposition to it in terms 
that came within the scope of its treason acts. He 
was thus on trial for what was really a political 
offense. He could not deny the fact that he had 
been active against the government. He might 
have put to issue the question of the legality of 
Rump and Council of State by refusing to plead 
before their court. This was the advice he gave 
to Capel and Holland in February; but then there 
was the likelihood that their refusal to plead would 
tide their trial over till a new "representative" 
was chosen. Had Lilbume taken a similar course 
in October, the issue must have been a revolt or his 
death; he would have given the government the 
opportunity of getting rid of him as it had hoped 
to do. The only remaining course was the one that 
he adopted — picking to pieces the evidence by which 
his agitation was brought within the scope of the 
treason acts. It must be admitted that the skill 
with which he foiled the court and the attorney 
for the state served to make the government appear 
ridiculous in the extreme. For the time, however, 



300 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

military success had intrenched it too strongly to 
be overthrown. Lilburne, realising this fact, suf- 
fered himself to be persuaded by the entreaties of 
his wife, and forebore embarking on a new attempt 
to overturn a strong de facto government. 

NOTE 
The Levellers and the Irish Problem in 1649 

Occasionally the Levellers were brought in contact with the problem 
as to the principles on which Ireland was to be held in subjection to the 
English government. The soldiery in the winter of 1649, perhaps 
under Leveller influence, displayed a marked unwilUngness to undertake 
the conquest of Ireland. The Moderate Intelligeficer, May 2-10, makes 
a lame attempt to answer a series of questions justifying the Irish 
revolt as the attempt of a conquered people to throw off its conquerors; 
apparently the questions were addressed to those intending to go to 
Ireland. See also a paper, E. 551 (21), labeled by Thomason "A Libbell 
scatered about ye Streets ye 25 Aprill 1649;" The English Souldiers 
Standard To Repair e to; Henry Denne, The Levellers Design e Discovered, 
May 24, 1649, E. 556 (11), p. 3. 

The civilian Levellers generally disclaimed responsibility for the sol- 
diers' refusal to subdue Ireland. However, the following passage from 
Thomas Prince is worth consideration, as containing at least as much 
common sense and plausibility as the Irish policies that have originated 
at Westminster in the last three hundred years. "If England were 
setled, as afore mentioned, the goodnesse of the Government would 
invite the Irish, with a desire unto it; there would then be some hopes 
(sending over faithfuU men, those who would make conscience of their 
waies, such as would keep their engagements) that the Irish would soon 
be reduced; as being willing to change their condition of bondage for 
freedom, and willingly render the chief Authors and agents in that 
inhumane butchery up to justice, whereby much innocent bloud might 
be saved." The Silken Independents Snare Broken, p. 7. 

An argument used against the Agreements of the People was that 
they left England without any legal hold on Ireland. For, Ashurst 
argued, the Crown and the Parhament were the only source of English 
authority in Ireland; and a representative, originating with the English 
people, could hardly succeed to the rights of the older constituted author- 
ities. Reasons Against Agreement with a late Printed Paper, intituled, 
Foundations of Freedome; .... Dec. 26, 1648, E. 536 (4), p. 8. 



CHAPTER X 

The Levellers' Case against the 
Commonwealth 

As in 1647 the Levellers had discovered the idea 
'^^^ of the written constitution, so in 1649 they 
developed it till the concept was almost complete. 
This evolution was the result of the events narrated 
in the last two chapters. For one thing, attacks 
on the unconventional opinions of individuals in 
their ranks induced the Levellers to state a party 
creed and disclaim responsibility for all individual 
beliefs at variance with it. Moreover, by criti- 
cising the Commonwealth, the Levellers were led 
to formulate exactly their own constitutional pro- 
gram; and they evolved a final Agreement of the 
People in which the written constitution stands fully 
revealed as paramount law. 

Since the Levellers proposed their Agreement 
as a constitutional substitute for the Common- 
wealth government, it may be permissible to esti- 
mate the logical strength and weakness of that 
government's claim to obedience. First, the events 
by which it was established may be reviewed. On 
December 6 Colonel Pride, acting for the officers 
of the army, had forcibly excluded a hundred and 
forty-three Presbyterian members from the House 
of Commons, thereby giving control to a small 
Independent minority. This remnant, or ' ' Rump, ' ' 

301 



302 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

not much more than a quorum of the House, had 
erected a High Court of Justice to try the king. 
When the Lords had opposed this measure, the 
Rump had announced that the people were the 
sole fountain of power; and tracing its own author- 
ity to this source, it had refused to recognize the 
House of Lords as a part of the government. 
Later, the Rump had declared the monarchy and 
the House of Lords abolished, and had erected as 
an executive a Council of State composed for the 
most part of Parliament members or army officers. 
When the supporters of the government under- 
took to justify its actions, they generally followed 
a line of reasoning sketched by Ireton's Army 
Remonstrance, and later implied in a formal de- 
claration of the House of Commons. The first 
step in the argument was the assertion that the 
king had been merely a subordinate ruler com- 
missioned by the state, and bound to it by a com- 
pact originally^ made between the people and the 
first ruler, and ratified at the accession of each new 
monarch by the people's oath of allegiance and the 
king's coronation oath.^ It followed that the 
king's violation of this compact in any essential was 
sufficient to absolve the people from their oath of 
allegiance. Such a violation, therefore, authorized 
them to resist their king by force of arms; if they 

1 As Salus Populi solus Rex puts it, the state alone is king. Oct. 17, 
1648, E. 467 (39), p. 2. 

2 Severall Speeches, Robert Parsons, Feb. 3, 1648/9, E. 521 (1), p. 29, 
emphasizes the balance of the oaths; so does The Oath of Allegiance And 
The National Covenant Proved To be Non-Obliging, Samuel Eaton, July 
1, 1650, E. 606 (2), p. 1. 



LEVELLERS' CASE AGAINST COMMONWEALTH 303 

prevailed, it enabled them either to readmit him to 
power on their own conditions or to depose him.^ 

For certain purposes this argument was effective. 
At the moment, it could be used to silence the 
Presbyterians who had been loud in their outcries 
at the "parricidal" deed of January 30; for, to 
justify war against the king in 1642, they them- 
selves had framed a theory of compact in similar 
terms. Their only logical escape lay in demon- 
strating that the contract theory could be made to 
justify armed resistance, but not deposition; and 
John Milton's reasonings took on an unwonted 
directness and candor when he concluded for the 
Presbyterians that, in making war on their king, 
they had to all practical purposes deposed him.^ 

In combating the Royalists, Commonwealth 
writers matched the theory of compact against the 
theory of divine right; and one line of abstract 
reasoning was perhaps as effective as the other. 
Indeed the single quality that made Milton's an- 
swer to Salmasius decisive, was the keen critical 

3 The Royal Project, Oct. 20, 1648, E. 468 (22), p. 10. So also the 
Army Remonstrance, p. 21, E. 473 (11); A Declaration of the Parliament 
of England, Mar. 22, 1648/9, E. 548 (12). 

* The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, Works, 1839 ed., p. 240. 
A great deal of controversy centered on the question as to whether 
Parliament could release the people from the oaths they had taken to 
maintain the king's just power — such as the oath of allegiance, the 
Protestation, the Covenant. Later, the question was rather as to 
whether the Engagement prescribed by Parhament in 1649 could law- 
fully be taken by those who had taken the earlier oaths. See for this 
A Plea for Non-Scribers, June 11, 1650, E. 603 (l),and Arguments And 
Reasons To prove the ... . Vnlawf illness Of Taking the New En- 
gagement, Feb. 14, 1649/50, E. 593 (7). 



304 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

sense that overset, one by one, the historical in- 
stances that Claude de Saumaise had laboriously 
collected to support the impossible proposition that 
the doctrine of divine right has restrained men from 
overthrowing their government whenever they have 
had the opportunity and the inclination. But 
Milton failed to demonstrate conclusively the ab- 
stract principle that the "sovereignty of the people" 
makes a nation happier than does the rule of a 
divinely appointed monarch. That principle re- 
quired deductive proof; and historical evidence 
could apply only in so far as it could answer these 
questions: Are men happier under a government 
that is final and absolute judge of its own powers, or 
under a government which any faction may right- 
fully overset? Will a nation suffer more when the 
decision as to what government shall do is left to 
one man, or when it is left to civil strife? Till 
the Commonwealth writers answered these ques- 
tions, they could scarcely claim a logical victory 
over the Royalists. 

Such a statement of the case may seem unfair 
to the founders of the Commonwealth ; but one must 
remember that they were not believers in democracy. 
The sovereignty of the people to their minds did 
not imply the necessity of inquiring after the peo- 
ple's will by democratic methods; in fact, they 
found it impossible to designate a form through 
which the people had expressed its concurrence in 
their acts. The people had delegated them neither 
to judge of the king's violation of the compact 
nor to exact the penalty for it; indeed it was self- 



LEVELLERS' CASE AGAINST COMMONWEALTH 305 

evident that the mass of the people abhorred the 
revolution of 1649. 

Apologists for the Commonwealth might have 
escaped these difficulties by reverting to the argu- 
ments of 1642, and asserting that Parliament — 
the nation united in the only form in which it could 
take political action — had represented the nation 
in the work of justice upon the king. But if the 
apologists took this position, they had the ugly 
business of Pride's Purge to explain. Had not the 
army expelled and imprisoned members of the 
House of Commons, until the erection of the High 
Court of Justice was really the act of the army, 
and not the act of a free Parliament? For that 
matter, could the House of Commons abolish the 
monarchy without the Lords' concurrence, or fur- 
ther abolish the Upper House itself? Clearly in 
former Parliaments, the House of Commons had 
never considered such things a part of the day's 
work.^ 

* Of course the republics of antiquity inspired treatises on the superi- 
ority of republican government to monarchy. To a modern these 
treatises appear academic. Thus, Henry Robinson undertook to prove 
the advantage of "aristocracy" or representative government over 
monarchy; but his argument was not worth serious consideration until 
he should find a definition of the word "representative" that could fit 
the Commonwealth. His diatribes on the ignominy of slavery to a 
king were empty breath, for slavery was slavery, whether one man or 
a clique of a hundred were master, and whether the master called itself 
king or Commonwealth. A Short Discourse Between Monarchical And 
Aristocratical Government, Oct. 24, 1649, E. 575 (31). See also The 
Trve Portraitvre of the Kings Of England, Aug. 7, 1650, E. 609 (2). This 
is an arraignment and condemnation of the past kings of England. 



306 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

The only defenses of the Commonwealth that 
impress one as straightforward and manly are 
those implied in the ideas of fanatics such as the 
Fifth Monarchy men. These men at least admitted 
that the government of the Commonwealth was an 
oligarchy, albeit one of divine appointment. By 
a series of direct providences, they said, God had 
taken power from the hands of the carnal mass 
of the nation, and bestowed it on the godly few of 
the army to use for his own glory. In putting 
Charles Stuart to death, they had but put into execu- 
tion God's own law against murder. To consider lay- 
ing down the power that God had put in their hands 
would be to tempt him. Rather they must use 
it to prepare the world against the time when King 
Jesus should appear to rule the fifth monarchy, 
which should succeed the Assyrian, the Persian, 
the Greek, and the Roman.® 

Persons more carnally minded interpreted the 
divine right of the Saints to rule as the divine right 
of superior force. Marchamont Nedham, sometime 
editor of Pragmaticus, turned Commonwealth sman 
in 1650 and published a defense of his new masters. 
The Commonwealth party, he said, had conquered 
the king in war and had made spoil of the power 
he had formerly enjoyed. The nation had passively 
sat by during the struggle between Cavalier and 
Roundhead, and must submit to any form of gov- 

• As t)T3ical, see Certain Quaeres Humbly presented In way of Petition, 
By many Christian People, dispersed abroad throughout .... Nor- 
folk, Feb. 19, 1648/9, E. 544 (5). 



LEVELLERS' CASE AGAINST COMMONWEALTH 307 

ernment, not contrary to the law of nature or 
nations, that the victors chose to establish.^ 

The root of the whole matter was that the foun- 
ders of the Commonwealth had been driven by the 
necessity of preserving themselves and their ideals 
from destruction. Their actions had been dictated 
by necessity rather than by constitutional prece- 
dents or theories of popular sovereignty; and ac- 
cordingly they could not make such precedents or 
theories fit the actual situation. Their deeds were 
justifiable only by the divine right of success, 
whether expounded by Harrison, the mystic, or 
Nedham, the man of the world. 

To the statesmanship of expediency, the Level- 
lers opposed the statesmanship of principle. A 
reported conversation between Lilburne and Hugh 
Peters, whether authentic or not, puts the essential 
difference between the Leveller and Common- 
wealthsman into a word. The indefatigable Peters 
visited Lilburne in the Tower one day in the spring 
of 1649, and told him in the course of conversation 
that there was not, nor ever had been law in the 
kingdom save what the sword had set up. Peters 
refused to except even the Petition of Right from 
his generalization, and challenged Lilburne to 
frame a definition of law without presupposing 
armed might. Lilburne rose to the occasion. In 
answer to Peters's cynicism, he read the great 
definition of law by which Pym had weighed and 

^ The Case Of The Common-wealth 0/ England Stated, May 8, 1650, 
E. 600 (7). See also his editorials in Mercurius Politicus, Oct. 17-24, 
and Dec. 5-12, 1650. 



308 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

found wanting Strafford and Thorough alike. If 
government contemned law and ruled by might, 
the governed would evade law and gratify their 
passions by violence and craft. Lilburne by a 
word had condemned Peters out of his own mouth, 
proving that the Leveller rather than the Common- 
wealthsman was the inheritor of the ideals of 1640.^ 

The Levellers shaped their political conduct by 
their conviction that the Commonwealth govern- 
ment masked a military despotism. Behind Par- 
liament and Council of State they saw the figure of 
Cromwell; and they interpreted his part in the 
erection of the extra-legal High Court of Justice 
as the earnest of his resolution to crush, with or 
without law, whoever opposed him. Therefore, in 
the first months after Pride's Purge, they did not 
denounce the Rump as illegal; rather they implored 
it to make itself a real representative of the nation 
by shaking off the military despotism that bound 
it, and by establishing the liberties of the people 
by means of an Agreement. If it would but free 
itself, the radicals were ready to recognize it as 
doing the work of a representative, and to overlook 
the illegality of its position.^ 

When the Rump's acquiescence in the imprison- 
ment of the four Levellers had shown its determi- 
nation not to lead a popular revolution, Lilburne 
attacked its legal position with effect. If it as- 

' A Discovrse Betwixt Lieutenant Colonell lohn Lilburn Close Prisoner 
in the Tower of London, and Mr. Hugh Peter: Upon May 25, E. 556 
(26). See Note on p. 324, on the authenticity of this pamphlet. 

• Englands New-Chaines Discovered. 



LEVELLERS' CASE AGAINST COMMONWEALTH 309 

sumed to derive its authority from 1640, let it 
remember, said he, that the Perpetual Act, which 
had preserved it till 1649, had never been intended 
at the time of its passage to be the excuse for an 
absolute and perpetual Parliament. Were the case 
otherwise, the act was void as against nature, and 
as a betrayal of the people heinous enough to nullify 
the legal existence of the Parliament that had 
passed it. Moreover, not even the title based on 
the Perpetual Act had come to the Rump unim- 
paired. The various expulsions and purges had 
left Parliament what its protectors in the army 
had called it before the king's execution — a mock 
Parliament.*" 

Were this discredited title never so good, Lil- 
burne said, it could not give the semblance of con- 
stitutionality to the revolutionary abolition of the 
monarchy and the House of Lords. Those who 
elected the House of Commons in 1640 had never 
designed granting it power to exceed the customary 
duties of a Lower House acting with king and peers. 
Far less did either the people's election or the Per- 
petual Act empower the Rump to violate principles 
of English liberty by trying men before extraor- 
dinary tribunals. Least of all would it justify the 
illegal acts that government was apparently med- 
itating. In short, the Rump's abolition of the mon- 
archy and the Upper House had left no claimant, 
save possibly the prince, with a shadow' of legal 
right to political power. To Lilburne the only way 

^^ Legal Fundamentall Liberties, pp. 49-57; Strength out of Weaknesse, 
pp. 4, II; An Impeachment Of High Treason, p. 1. 



310 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

out of the difficulty was an appeal in good earnest 
to the sovereign people, and the establishment of 
a constitution by way of an Agreement. ^^ 

It cannot be repeated too often that such doc- 
trines do not prove the apostasy of the Levellers 
from the ideals of 1646. Then their constitutional 
ideal had been a House of the people's representa- 
tives, absolute because it conscientiously kept in 
close touch with the people's wishes, and responded 
readily to their demands. But the events of 1647 
and 1648 had convinced the Levellers that their 
ideal was incapable of realization. As the last of 
the Agreements put it, the great danger in all gov- 
ernment was the eagerness of "entrusted" gover- 

^^ Strength out of Weaknesse, pp. 11 ff; Legal Fundamentall Liberties, 
pp. 57 fif . In spite of their denunciation of the Rump's extra-legal status, 
the Levellers did not always refuse it recognition as a de facto govern- 
ment. Repeatedly they petitioned it on Lilburne's behalf; and Lilburne, 
though in the spring he had protested against such petitions and had 
disavowed them, in October did not refuse to be tried by a court erected 
by the government. An Impeachment Of High Treason, p. 2. Strength 
out of Weak7iesse, postscript. In Englattds New-Chaines Discovered he 
himself acknowledged the Rump as the supreme authority; but later he 
explained that he had done so rather than let the people know that 
the kingdom was without legal government. But he urged Lord Capel 
to deny the validity of the High Court of Justice and hence the legal title 
of the Rump; and he himself acknowledged the jurisdiction of the 
government's court because he believed that his opponent, the Attorney- 
General, was unprepared for that line of action. Further, after his 
acquittal he took the Engagement to the Commonwealth of England, 
interpreting the oath in such a manner as to deny the lawfulness of 
the Rump's authority. Legal Fundamentall Liberties, pp. 68, 73; L. 
Colonel John Lilburne revived, p. 3; The Engagement Vindicated 6* Ex- 
plained, Or The Reasons Upon which Lieut. Col. John Lilburne tooke the 
Engagement, Jan. 22, 1649/50, E. 590 (4); Strength out of Weaknesse, 
p. 5. 



LEVELLERS' CASE AGAINST COMMONWEALTH 311 

nors to make their power absolute. ^^ The Levellers 
were compelled to abandon their dreams of an 
absolute Parliament in constant sympathy with 
popular wishes. Instead, they sought after con- 
stitutional devices whereby government might be 
restrained from encroachment on the governed. 
The last Agreement of the People represented the 
Levellers' reluctant modification of their ideals in 
recognition of the depravity of human nature. 
Moreover Lilbume, at least, had come to recognize 
an element of fixity and security in the ancient 
English constitution of king, Lords, and Commons, 
all bound by the known law. However irritating 
or humiliating the forms of the ancient English 
monarchy, at least it was preferable to a military 
despotism which asserted that might was right. 

Whenever they despaired of the realization of 
their own program, the Levellers were likely to 
consider a possible restoration of monarchy. They 
had no sentimental leanings to republicanism to 
withhold them. Primarily, they demanded the 
limitation of the power of government by a funda- 
mental law emanating from the people. If only 
the persons of the governors were made liable for 
breaches of the law, the Levellers cared not whether 
those governors were called kings, lords, or parlia- 
ment-men. Nor is there anything essentially in- 
congruous in the idea of a king as the executive 
officer of a democracy, if only he be subject to 
deposition for breach of trust. The earlier ob- 

^^ An Agreement of the Free People of England May 1, 

1649, E. 571 (10). 



312 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

jections of the Levellers to kingship were pri- 
marily objections to Charles I as a man guilty of 
breach of faith and wilful murder; or to the insti- 
tution of hereditary kingship as it had come down 
from the Norman conquest. Neither objection 
would bar the setting up of Charles II as a consti- 
tutional monarch. Lilburne could even see argu- 
ments in favor of such a course. The election of 
another as king would only prolong indefinitely the 
struggle with the Cavaliers; but the restoration 
of Charles would end the civil wars and the need of 
heavy taxes and armaments. All this was possible 
if only the king accepted the Agreement of the 
People. ^^ 

Of course a permanent alliance on this basis was 

1' Legal Fundamentall Liberties, pp. 60, 61; An Impeachment Of High 
Treason, p. 8. Lilbume retailed similar arguments to Prideaux in their 
interview in September. "But M. Lilbum," said Prideaux on that 
occasion, "for all your thus reasoning, I know you have in times by 
past liked a Common-wealth better then the Government of a King, 
have you not?" "Yes that I have, and still do, provided it be rightly 
Constituted, from the consent of the People, with just bounds and limit- 
ations, that as little as may be is left to arbitraries: but all its Magistrates 
annualy elective, and accountable, and upon these tearmes I am with 
all my heart for a Common-wealth: But to have the name of a Common- 
wealth imposed upon us by the Sword, wherein we are and shall be more 
slaves then ever we were under Kingship, with a suprem pretended 
power held over us, that in their Original and Fundamental constitu- 
tion admit of no boundaries, but judge themselves as absolutely arbi- 
trary, as the Great Turke .... such a Common-wealth as this 
I abhor and detest as the Devil himself; But such a one is yours, and 
therefore I had rather (as the case stands) be under a King reasonable 
bounded then under you, and your new Sword Tyranny, called a 
Common- wealth." "But sir (saith he) you have bin very stiffe against 
the King, Its true, said I, but not Qua King, but against his Arbitrary 
and TjTannical Will, when he made it a rule unto himself, and the 
People above the Law." Strength out of Weaknesse, p. 12. 



LEVELLERS' CASE AGAINST COMMONWEALTH 313 

impossible. In their theories of government Lil- 
burne and Hyde stood at opposite poles ; they agreed 
only in their respect for the sanctity of law. But 
nevertheless Hyde gave the Levellers credit for 
excellent intentions, and proposed certain slight 
concessions. A memorandum of his composition, 
weighing the relative desirability of advances to 
the Presbyterians and the Levellers, decided for 
the Levellers. The last named, Hyde wrote, went 
to the heart of the political situation by demanding 
the dissolution of the pretended Parliament. Their 
hatred of arbitrary government made it possible 
to win them over to respect for the fundamental 
laws of the land. Having "little of Ambition, 
Pryde, or Covetousness in them," their proposals 
for reform would fall of their own extravagance. 
Perhaps, in the end, the Levellers might be contented 
with toleration, the reform of law proceedings, the 
amelioration of the condition of the poor, close 
adherence in government to the fundamental laws, 
and frequent sessions of Parliaments. So far the 
Royalists could reach out a hand toward the Level- 
lers; the whole gulf of democracy remained between 
them.i* 

^'^ Nicholas Papers, I, 139. A quotation from An Out Cry (p. 9) 
will indicate the lengths to which the Levellers would go. They hope 
it wiU soon be clear to Charles that he will never gain the love of the 
English people and his crown "but by a cheerefull, hearty and reall 
promotion of such principles therein [the Agreement] contained, as doe 
sufficiently tye his hands from cutting the peoples throats, at his will 
and pleasure, the endeavoring of which, exposed his father to that 
fatall end that befell him; which may be a seasonable caveat to all 
Princes &c to take heed of that desperate rock, viz. the attempting to 
govern the people by wiU, and not by lav/; by force, and not by love." 



314 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

In fact, the growing catholicity of the Leveller 
political ideas in 1649 was one reason which induced 
them to state their specific program more exactly. 
The Commonwealth, taking advantage of their 
openmindedness to Royalism, sought to demon- 
strate that the Levellers were merely adjuncts to 
Royalist conspiracies. In May, Tom Verney, a 
Parliament spy, had attempted to trap Lilburne 
into correspondence; as Verney had a royal com- 
mission, the government in case of his success 
would have had formal proof of Lilburne's Royalist 
leanings. ^^ In September, the government spread 
broadcast a letter from one Royalist to another 
implying that the Royalists were hoodwinking the 
Levellers. ^"^ The utterances of Royalist journals 
afforded corroboration. They gave their support 
to the Leveller uprisings, Pragmaticus on one occa- 
sion advising Royalists to construe them favorably, 
as the Levellers stood for monarchy. ^^ 

The Levellers were as much harassed by ihe 
freakish opinions of persons inside their party or 
on the fringe of it as by the danger of a defection 
from it to Royalism. Their opponents used the 
supposed atheism of Walwyn and Overton to dis- 
credit the whole group as irreligious.^^ There was 

"yl Preparative To An Hue And Cry after Sir Arthur Haslerig, pp. 7, 
14. See also An Anatomy of Lievt. Col. John Lilhurn's Spirit and Pam- 
phlets, Oct. 16, 1649, E. 575 (21). 

^^ A Declaration of the Parliament of England, Sept. 27, 1649, E. 575 
(9). The letter appeared in the Perfect Weekly Account, Sept. 12-19. 
Mercurius Elencticus pronounced it a forgery, Sept. 10-17. 

^'' Mercurius Pragmaticus, Apr. 17-24, Sept. 4-11, 1649. 

" Englands Discoverer, June 6, 1649, E. 559 (2). See also The Crafts- 
mens Craft, pp. 3, 7, 



LEVELLERS' CASE AGAINST COMMONWEALTH 315 

also a little group of "Diggers," who began to dig 
and plant the commons in the faith that God had 
created the earth a store-house and a common 
treasure for all mankind; and government journals 
by all manner of devices sought to prove that 
Diggers and Levellers were identical. By similar 
arguments various pamphlets proved conclusively 
that the Levellers were communists. ^^ 

Accordingly, the Levellers prepared to defend 
themselves from such attacks by restating their 
party creed. Such a restatement would serve the 
double purpose of disclaiming responsibility for the 
vagaries of individual opinion, and recalling their 
members from too easy acquiescence with the Roy- 
alists. There had been earlier creeds to serve as 
tests of the Leveller faith — the petition of March, 
1647, and above all ihe petition of September 11, 
1648.2° But now a revised creed was needed to 
serve a new purpose. 

And so [says a vindication of the Levellers] we have 
done with the first part of the Discoverers; onely we shall 
make one observation; that what our party principally sticks 
to, they altogether decline; viz: Our Manifestation, and the 
Agreement: By the one, unjust Aspersions are wip'd off, 
and we manifest what we are not: By the other, we evi- 
dence to all the World what we are, and what we seek for. 

" A Modest Narrative of Intelligence, Apr. 28-May 5, 1649. Mer- 
curius Pragmaticus, Apr. 17-24, said that the authorities exaggerated 
the Diggers' importance in order to connect them with the Levellers. 
Lilburne disclaimed responsibihty for any program but the Agreement 
of May 1. Legal Fundamentall Liberties, pp. 81, 82. 

2" For instance, petitions appear from "approvers of the Petition of 
the 11 of September." May 5, 1649, 669 f. 14 (27); Aug. 21, 1650, 
669 f. 15 (50); Aug. 31, 1650, 669 f. 15 (54); others might be cited. 



316 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

Other papers are personal, and concern haply this or that 
man, as they Jiave bin by occasion and provocation necessi- 
tated from them; but these do more generally concern us all, 
and are own'd by the Party; And therefore, it will do better 
hereafter, that men make not excursions a causa, ad non 
causam: from the cause, to the accidents.^^ 

The first of the two documents alluded to, the 
Manifestation,^'^ is an attempt to explain a fact 
clearer to our own century than to the seventeenth 
— the existence of motives other than personal 
ambition that led men of humble station to under- 
take the task of securing the nation's happiness. 
The law of nature and Christianity, said the Mani- 
festation, impelled the Levellers to seek "to produce 
out of the Common Calamities, such a proportion 
of Freedom and good to the Nation, as might some- 
what compensate its many grievances and lasting 
sufferings." In pursuit of this end, they were 
primarily concerned to make sure that the changed 
form of government implied a complete revolution 
in the former relation of government and people. 
The manifestors gave notice that to this end they 
would soon submit an Agreement of the People for 
the nation's approval. 

Meanwhile, they continued, for the sake of their 
own good fame, they must make formal plea to the 
worst charges against them. They had already de- 

2* The Crafts-mens Craft. Or The Wiles of the Discoverers, p. 13. 

^^ A Manifestation From Lieutenant Col. John Lilburne, Mr. William 
Walwyn, Mr. Thomas Prince, and Mr. Richard Overton, (Now Prisoners 
in the Tower of London) And others, commonly {though unjustly) Styled 
Levellers . ... to satisfie and ascertain all Men whereunto all their 
Motions and Endeavours tend and what is the ultimate Scope of their 
Engagement in the Pvblick Afaires, Apr. 16, 1649, E. 550 (25). 



LEVELLERS' CASE AGAINST COMMONWEALTH 317 

clared community of property unlawful unless it 
had unanimous consent. The fact that they sought 
a good government did not prove the charge that 
they were anarchists desiring none at all. The fact 
that they knew no church government or service 
with sure enough warrant to be imposed on the 
consciences of men did not prove that they were 
atheists and anti-scripturists. Their past careers 
of opposition to arbitrary power should witness 
that they were not Royalists. They were not the 
political tools of any group of self-seeking men ; for 
again, their proposals were designed to overthrow 
all the "corrupt interests" of the kingdom. In 
conclusion, they trusted that the sincerity of their 
good intentions to the nation would finally sur- 
mount these and other calumnies, and vindicate 
them in the sight of all men. 

The Agreement of the People published by the 
four prisoners. May i, 1649,23 has the same frame 
work as that of December, 1648, but different 
provisions. The "representatives" are now to be 
annual instead of biennial ; not merely householders, 
but all persons of legal age who are not paupers or 
servants, are to have votes. Members are declared 
incapable of reelection. A "representative" may 
not depute its power to a Council of State, or to 
anything except a committee of its members. All 
the limitations imposed on the "representative" by 

^^ An Agreement of the Free People of England, Tendered as a Peace- 
Offering to this distressed Nation By Lieutenant Colonel John Lilburne, 
Master William Walwyn, Master Thomas Prince and Master Richard 
Overton, Prisoners in the Tower of London, May 1, 1649. 



318 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

the earlier Agreements are retained in that of May i . 
"Representatives" may not impress; they may not 
meddle with the execution of laws or permit a court 
to punish in the absence of a known law. They 
may not question any man for his part in the past 
wars. The last Agreement, in fact, goes much 
farther than the earlier one in its enumeration of 
reserved powers. The "representative" is not only 
forbidden to lay penalties against person or estate 
for extra-legal offenses; it cannot allow such power 
to any court. The "representative" may not com- 
pel any man's worship or impose an oath regarding 
religion or bar men from public service for religion's 
sake, save Papists and others admitting a foreign 
supremacy. 

There is a series of restrictions intended to pre- 
vent the continuance of the corrupt interests that 
the Levellers had so long opposed. The Agreement 
is more moderate than earlier manifestos, as it does 
not insist on the abolition of the central law courts; 
but otherwise the "corrupt interest" of the courts 
and lawyers is sharply curbed. Ex officio examina- 
tions, debarring men from pleading their own cases, 
use of another language than English in laws and 
courts, continuance of cases and proceedings longer 
than six months, sentencing any person to death 
save for murder or treason, denial of jury trial or of 
benefit of witnesses — all are now illegal. The ' ' rep- 
resentative" may not allow monopolies of trade; 
it may not lay taxes like the excise. It must quell 
the corrupt interest of the clergy by abolishing 



LEVELLERS' CASE AGAINST COMMONWEALTH 319 

tithes — due satisfaction being given the lay im- 
propriators. 

Besides limitations intended to crush corrupt 
interests, there are several designed to protect local 
government against encroachments of central gov- 
ernment. The electors of each parish must have 
the right to choose their own minister and contract 
with him for the manner and amount of his remu- 
neration. The people of counties, boroughs, hun- 
dreds, and towns must be free to choose in yearly 
elections all their public officers, and all those who 
are to administer the law in their localities. When 
raising militia, the people of each locality may 
choose their own officers. 

The test of the efficiency of a constitution such 
as this must be the efficiency of the machinery by 
which it enforces itself. The framers of this con- 
stitution devised that machinery mainly with a 
view to preventing any representative from over- 
riding or destroying the Agreement. The Agreement 
expressly declares itself past the power of "repre- 
sentatives" to alter. It pronounces any member 
who does not protest against an attempt at altera- 
tion guilty of high treason. Above all, it declares 
that "all Laws made, or that shall be made contrary 
to any part of this Agreement, are hereby made 
null and void." 

Here the eternal problem confronted the makers 
of the Agreement. Who was to judge as to what 
was, or was not contrary to the Agreement? They 
assigned no specific body of men this duty, but as 



320 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

they left to grand and petty juries the duty of 
arraigning and condemning those who intruded 
either in elections or in the sittings of the Repre- 
sentative, they implied a judicial review of political 
acts. Lilburne's doctrine of 1648 would have per- 
mitted the common-law courts to judge of political 
matters in certain cases. The idea that a court 
may pass on the constitutionality of acts of the 
legislature does not, however, assume distinct form 
till 1653. 

In all probability the Levellers would have ap- 
pealed to reason as the interpreter of their final 
Agreement of the People. Their confidence in 
reason as the arbiter of all things may be better 
understood through a parallel with Calvinistic the- 
ology. To the Puritans the sin of Adam had in- 
fected all mankind; original sin, leaving untouched 
the reason of man that he might know good trom 
evil, had corrupted his will so that of himself he 
could not will to do what conscience and reason 
told him was right in the sight of the Lord. To 
the corrupted will the Levellers traced the necessity 
of government; for, since man could not will to do 
right against his own self-interest, he needed a 
judge set over him lest he be judge in his own cause. 
But since the reason of man remained untarnished, 
the reason of a whole people could be trusted to 
lead it to a right and just solution of any political 
problem; for here the interests of the great majority 
of men were identical. The reasoning was plausible 
so far as it went; but the authors of the Agreement 
had still to devise a means by which the reason of a 



LEVELLERS' CASE AGAINST COMMONWEALTH 321 

people might express itself in an orderly and peace- 
ful manner.^* 

After May i, 1649, there is no longer any doubt 
of the constitutional significance that the Levellers 
attached to an Agreement of the People. They 
considered it the nation's solemn acknowledgment 
of its act in establishing government. It is true 
that six months earlier, under the influence of this 
same idea, they had devised means by which the 
sovereign people might frame and adopt its consti- 
tution. But the various drafts of the Agreement 
of 1648 had retained the preamble whose phrases a 
year earlier had suggested a mere concord between 
the warring factions of the state. The Agreement 
of May I, 1649, is not an accord of "interests"; it 
is the declaration of the will of a sovereign people. 
The people of England under God — thus runs the 

^* John Calvin, Institutes, Book II, chap. 2. The following is a fair 
statement of the Leveller doctrine. "I but M. Lilburn, who shall be 
ludge said he? Sir, (said I) Reason is demonstrable of it self, and every 
man (less or more), is endued with it; and it hath but one ballance to 
weigh it in, or one touch-stone to try it by, viz To teach a man to do 
as he would be done to. The Sun is demonstrable of it self by its heat 
and light, and stands in need of no mans ludgement when it shines, 
to judge whether it doth so or no, or of reasons to prove it the Sun; 
Even so. Reason is demonstrable by its innate glory life, and efficacy; 
and man being a reasonable creature, is Judge for himself: But by reason 
of his present corrupted estate, and want of perfection, he is somthing 
partial in his own case, and therefore wherein many are concerned, 
Reason tels him, Commissioners chosen out and tyed to such rational 
Instructions as the Chusers give them, are the most proper and equallest 
Judges." Strength out of Weaknesse, p. 14. 

So also Overton, "for if right reason be not the only being and 
bounder of the Law over the corrupt nature of man, that what is ra- 
tionall (the which injustice and tyranny cannot be) may only and at 
all times be legall." An Appeale, p. 3. 



322 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

preamble — "Agree to ascertain our Government, 
to abolish all arbitrary Power, and to set bounds 
and limits both to our Supreme, and all Subordinate 
Authority, . . . ." 

This phraseology is not an accident. Worded 
differently, the idea it conveys appears elsewhere 
in Leveller writings. Thus Lilburne stated his 
belief that all legal authority, except possibly that 
of the prince, was at an end ; accordingly, if the 
prince were not admitted on terms, the foundation 
of a just government must be laid by "an Agree- 
ment made amongst the generality of the People." 
Lilburne understood that such an agreement could 
not logically originate with the Parliament; thence 
it must come with a command; and what one Par- 
liament did, another could undo. Not so an Agree- 
ment of the People. ^^ 

To analyse the reasons why such an Agreement 
of the People missed acceptance by the English 
nation is almost superfluous. It could have arisen 
only from a democratic national movement; and 
such a movement, as the Levellers themselves per- 
ceived, required generations of education in democ- 
racy. Moreover, the Agreement demanded of those 

^ Legal Fundamentall Liberties, pp. 41-61 . Toward the end of the 
summer two or three devices were proposed for putting the Agreement 
into effect. None of these can be regarded as bearing the stamp of 
party authority. The method proposed was usually that the well- 
affected to the Agreement in the various counties or regiments should 
elect councils to choose certain persons to come up to London and con- 
sider means of establishing a new Representative, or of putting the 
Agreement into effect. The Levellers .... Vindicated, p. 12; 
An Out Cry, p. 9. Another pamphlet, not very reliable, suggested that 
the well-affected should unite in refusing to pay taxes to the govern- 



LEVELLERS' CASE AGAINST COMMONWEALTH 323 

who should adopt it understandingly a concept of 
the sovereignty of the people which few persons, 
learned or unlearned, would attain to, and fewer 
still adopt. 

Nevertheless the Agreement of the People was 
the only contemporary political program that logi- 
cally followed from the official theories on which 
the Commonwealth had been founded. Indeed, 
apart from practical men like Nedham, the only 
supporters of the Commonwealth who might log- 
ically have rejected the Agreement were the so- 
called Saints. The reason for their ill-will has 
already been mentioned. To them the Agreement 
was "building the Lord an altar of shaped stones." 
It was presuming to seek to save the nation from 
God's displeasure and chastisement. It was taking 
power out of the hands of the Saints to put it into 
the hands of the carnal multitude.-^ The distaste 
of the fanatics of the Fifth Monarchy type of mind 
for the Agreement of the People was due to the fact 
that they and the Levellers were on the extreme 

ment; all who did so were to have a voice in electing representatives to 
establish the liberties of the people on the foundation of a popular 
agreement. It proposed also a referendum on the subject of a return 
to monarchy. " In case this Common-wealth shall not, or cannot be 
at peace without one Head or King to Reign over them, that then 
Certificates shall be forthwith Printed, and sent into all Countries for 
approval thereof; that if we must have a King, the Crown of England 
may return to the right owner; or if most appear against that Govern- 
ment, it may be governed as Free Estates, and not otherwise." The 
Remonstrance Of many Thousands, p. 6. 

-' Supra, Chapter VIII, p. 266, note 1-i; A second view of the Army 
Remonstrance, p. 26; Certain Quaeres Humbly presented In way of Peti- 
tion, p. 8. 



324 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

wings of the Puritan movement. The fanatics had 
sought and found the will of God in prophesies, 
testifyings, and the vicissitudes of political and 
military events. The Levellers believed that they 
followed the guidance of a God of Law when they 
sought to reconstruct the nation on laws of justice 
that appealed to the reason of mankind. A con- 
stitutional settlement of this type, emanating from 
the sovereign people, was the substitute which the 
Levellers offered for the so-called Commonwealth 
government. 

NOTE 

The Authenticity of A DISCOURSE 

Dr. Gardiner came to the conclusion that the interview between 
Lilburne and Peters could not have taken place and that the pamphlet 
Discourse was therefore a fabrication. It seems to me that the weight of 
authority is for it. Lilburne included the Discourse in the list of his writ- 
ings in The Innocent Mans second-Proffer; further, in Legal Fundamentall 
Liberties (p. 54), he declared that Peters had told him there was no law 
in England but the sword. Internally the book, repeating the pertinent 
and the inconsequential alike, appears to be a report of an actual con- 
versation. In this respect it resembles Strength out of Weaknesse. Mer- 
curius Pragmaticus, May 29- June 5, gives the details of the interview 
and retails the circumstances that brought Peters on a chance visit to 
the Tower in more detail than does the Discourse. A Moderate Intelli- 
gence, May 24-31, 1649, also mentions the occurrence. Dr. Gardiner 
adduced the fact that the current Merctirius Pacificus, May 29, pro- 
nounces the Discourse a forgery. The exact quotation from the Pacifi- 
cus is as follows: "There is a sheet of Paper printed which is called A 
Discourse between Lieutenant Col. Lilburne and Mr. Peeters (in the 
Tower) which as it containes many seditious passages, so is it nothing 
else but a meer deceit, nor will it be avowed by any of them." This 
is not very strong evidence. Moreover, Lilburne did later acknowledge 
the Discourse, as has been said. 

Finally, Dr. Gardiner quotes two votes of the House of Commons, 
May 9 and 12, the first to the effect that only the wives, children, and 



LEVELLERS' CASE AGAINST COMMONWEALTH 325 

servants of the prisoners be allowed access to them, the second cutting 
off even this liberty. But the wording of the second vote will scarcely 
bear such a construction; the four prisoners are to "be restrained as 
close Prisoners, apart one from the other, within several Lodgings in 
the Tower." Commons Journal, VI, 205 ff. The point is important 
because the Discourse represents Lilburne's wife as with him. As for 
Peters, orders of the House of Commons were never intended to keep 
out that bustling divine; especially if, as Lilbume surmised, he came 
on a mission from the Grandees. 



CHAPTER XI 

The Climax of the Leveller Constitutional 
Theories 

'T^HE constitutional ideas of the Levellers did 
-'■ not perish when the Agreement of the People 
proved impracticable; for to the Levellers the 
Agreement had been a means to an end and not an 
end in itself. Their primary aim was not to set up 
a written constitution; rather it was to protect by 
law the rights of the individual from the encroach- 
ment of government. The force of events, it was 
true, had hindered the people from establishing a 
government under a paramount law ; but the Level- 
lers did not conclude from this that the Rump was 
not bound by law or that the people were devoid 
of means for enforcing such law as they had. A 
second political trial of Lilburne led his old followers 
to ascribe to ordinary juries the right of rejecting 
as null and void an act of Parliament contrary to 
the principles of reason or of the English common 
law. 

That John Lilburne caused this final development 
of Leveller constitutional ideas is significant in 
itself. Except when his robust personality dragged 
the Leveller party once more into the light of day, 
that party after 1649 was fast becoming a mere 
adjunct to lurking Royalist plots. For a year after 
his acquittal in 1649 political petitions from the 
"approvers of the petition of September 11, 1648" 

326 



LEVELLER CONSTITUTIONAL THEORIES 327 

made their appearance. But material to determine 
the circumstances that produced them is lacking; 
for the vigilance of the government made the old 
democratic propaganda increasingly difficult. After 
1650 the Levellers openly advanced their doctrines 
only when Lilburne's private pursuits had brought 
him into collision with the government on a matter 
of principle.^ 

For a time after Lilburne's acquittal in 1649, 
such a collision had seemed unlikely. Lilburne's 
old friends had again thought him guilty of apostasy 
because after his release he had kept on good terms 
with thie government. It is true that he had inter- 
preted the oath of loyalty to the Commonwealth 
as binding him to respect the old principles of the 
English constitution, rather than the Rump or the 
Council of State ;2 but this gloss had done him no 
more harm than to cause his ejectment from a seat 
in the London common council to which he had 
been elected in December of 1649. No further 
ebullition had followed, and accordingly the Rump 
under Cromwell's influence had shortly afterward 
completed the payment of his claims. Being satis- 
fied for the moment that Cromwell's aim was really 
the freedom of England, Lilburne had received 

1 These are in 669 f. 15 (50), Aug. 21, 1650 (endorsed "The LeveUers 
Petition"); E. 612 (1), Sept. 1, 1650; 669 f. 15 (54), Aug. 31, 1650. 
These protest in especial against further activity of a High Court of 
Justice, and demand trial by jury in all cases. Another petition of 
June 30, 1652, contains Leveller demands, but it does not have the 
usual Leveller formula. 

2 L. Colonel John Lilbvrne His Apologetical Narration, p. 14; The 
Engagement Vindicated 6* Explained. 



328 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

the favor with a good grace. As a mark of re- 
spect and gratitude he had accompanied Cromwell 
twenty-five miles out of London on his way to 
Scotland ; and the General had taken an affection- 
ate leave of him. To say the least, Lilburne's ap- 
parent reversal of his former opinion of Crom- 
well must have surprised the Levellers.' 

Lilburne, however, proved unequal to the task 
of living peaceably under the government. He 
took up again the innocent trade of soap-boiling;* 
but when he added to it the avocation of acting as 
agent or attorney for persons with suits before 
Parliament or its committees, he laid a foundation 
of future trouble for himself.^ A semi-political case 
in which he became involved got him into trouble 
with Parliament; and Parliament's vindictiveness 
in his case put at hazard principles of liberty that 
Englishmen had long considered fundamental. 

The case in question involved a disputed title 
to the use of the Harraton colliery near Durham. 
Josiah Primate, George Grey, and George Lilburne, 
an uncle of John, claimed it by virtue of a lease. 
Sir Arthur Haselrig, when on the Durham com- 

^The act in satisfaction of Lilburne's arrears is in 669 f. 15 (44). 
L. Colonel John Lilbvrne His Apologetical Narration, Apr. 1652, E. 659 
(30), p. 12. This is corroborated by a letter from Lilburne to Cromwell. 
Hist. Mss. Com. Marquis of Bath, II, 92. 

* The Royall Diurnall of Apr. 14-23 alludes to his occupation. Nov. 
2, 1650, he with other soap-boilers petitioned ParUament in a matter 
touching the trade. 669 f. 15 (62). 

^ Probably with a view to learning more law for this business, Lil- 
burne tried to enter the Temple; but his old adversary, Prideaux, refused 
to admit him. This occurred about December 1, 1649. The Second 
Part Of the Triall of Lieut. Col. John Lilburne, E. 598 (12). 



LEVELLER CONSTITUTIONAL THEORIES 329 

mittee In 1649, had seized It, alleging that It had 
been sequestered as the property of a Royalist, and 
that George Lllburne and George Grey under pre- 
text of a fraudulent lease were appropriating state 
property.^ At the worst, there was chance of as 
much fraud on the one side as on the other; for 
Haselrig was accused of Influencing the Durham 
committee to release the colliery at a scandalously 
low rental.^ The documents leave one with the 
Impression that either side had something of a case ; 
and when the Haberdashers' Hall committee at 
London decided against Primate and Lllburne, It 
apparently did not consider that they had been 
guilty of a palpable fraud. 

Nevertheless John Lllburne, who had been one 

' Primate claimed that three-fourths of the mine, comprising the 
lower seams, had been leased to him in 1629. The mine had been 
sequestered in 1644 on account of the delinquency of George Wray. 
The crucial point was: Did Wray own the whole mine or only one-fourth 
of it? Grey and George Lilburne went on the last-mentioned suppo- 
sition when in 1647 they leased Primate's rights and began pumping out 
the flooded lower levels. When Haselrig sequestered the whole mine 
in 1649, he acted on the supposition that Wray was the sole owner. 
The question that the Haberdashers' Hall committee really decided 
was whether the sequestration of 1644 covered the whole mine or only 
a part. The Lilburne side of the case is in A lust Reproof To Haber- 
dashers-Hall, July 30, 1651, E. 638 (12). Haselrig's side is in Musgrave 
MuzVed, Mar. 3, 1650/1, E. 625 (11), ascribed by Lilburne to John 
Price. A Letter Of Lieutenant Colonel John Lilburnes, Mar. 31, 1651, E. 
626 (19). The papers connected with the case are abstracted at length 
in the Calendar of the Committee for Compounding, III, 1917-1922; 
2127-2131. 

^ Calendar, pp. 2128-2129. The committee, however, absolved Ha- 
selrig of having any interest in the business. This charge is partly borne 
out by the fact that the committee refused to confirm Hacker's lease. 
Op. cit., p. 2128. 



330 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

of the counsel for his uncle and Primate, became 
involved in trouble through his antipathy to Sir 
Arthur Haselrig. Lilburne thought that Haselrig 
was seeking the ruin of his kinsmen because they had 
the courage to withstand his peculations in Durham. 
Moreover, John was firmly convinced that in 1649 
Sir Arthur had trumped up false charges against 
George Lilburne; had even sought the life of John 
himself, both directly by assassins and indirectly 
by withholding the rent of his Durham estates. 
John believed that on that occasion he had 
recovered his property by a threat of personal vio- 
lence against Haselrig. Apparently he now thought 
to repeat his success by publishing under title of 
A lust Reproof To Haberdashers -Hall a furious 
attack against Sir Arthur, accusing him of having 
influenced the committee unduly against Lilburne 
and Primate.^ 

This last outbreak was Lilburne's undoing. He 
with others was concerned in presenting to Parlia- 
ment a petition signed by Primate, but embodying 
the charges of A lust Reproof, and he was made 
the scapegoat of Parliament's wrath. January 15, 
1 65 1/2, the House voted the petition false and 
scandalous, and condemned it to be burned by the 
common hangman. Further, it assessed a fine of 
£7,000 on Primate, committing him to prison until 
it should be paid. It fined Lilburne £3,000, assessed 
him damages of £4,000, and condemned him to die 
as a felon if he were found in England at the end of 
thirty days. 

* A lust Reproof To Haberdashers-Hall. 



LEVELLER CONSTITUTIONAL THEORIES 331 

Lilburne was firmly convinced that Cromwell had 
forced the House of Commons to make the peti- 
tion a pretext for banishing him. Certain facts 
seemed to substantiate his theory. Lilburne cer- 
tainly had been less deeply concerned In Primate's 
petition than other counsel who escaped without a 
sentence. Whether the Harraton case was fraudu- 
lent or not, the fraud was not so apparent that a 
supporter of Primate must necessarily have been a 
rascal.^ Yet Cromwell, when speaking in the House 
on another subject, had broken off his speech to 
voice his emphatic approval of the sentence against 
Lilburne. Lilburne could not fathom Cromwell's 
motive for persecuting him ; for had he not offered 
to leave the colliery case, Haselrig and all, to 
Cromwell's arbitration? We know now that in the 
spring of 1651 a Royalist agent's confession had 
vaguely Implicated Lilburne, Marten, and Wildman 
in correspondence with the Royalists. Perhaps 
this incident convinced Cromwell that Lilburne was 
too dangerous to be at large, and must accordingly 
be got out of the way at the first opportunity.'^ 

The procedure of the House In banishing Lilburne 

' See Note on p. 346, on the sentence against Lilburne. 

1" Apologetical Narration, p. 19; A Defensive Declaration of Lieut. Col. 
John Lilburn, June 22, 1653, E. 702 (2), p. 9; Coke's Narration, Porl- 
land Mss, I, 591. Coke, the agent mentioned, had stated that he 
had seen letters written by the Levellers. "It was conceaved that John 
Lilburne had a hand in the letters, and that the intelligence came from 
him to. Sir Sackville Crow. Mr. Martin and one Wildmore — as the 
examinant remembers his name — were lookt upon as persons that 
together with Lilburne had influence upon the spirits of those men." 
The evidence is vague. According to Coke, the Levellers had stipu- 
lated for a "full and generall libertie." 



332 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

was SO palpably unjust that it completely threw 
in the shade any misconduct of which Lilburne 
had been guilty. The interference of the House was 
entirely necessary, for Haselrig and the committee 
had ample redress at common law for any slander 
they had suffered. Further, the House in its decree 
of banishment passed sentence on Lilburne without 
formal charge, and without allowing him to be 
heard in his defense. Of this point Lilburne did 
not fail to remind the House by refusing to kneel 
for sentence at its bar.^^ This contempt of court 
provoked the House of Commons to even worse 
proceedings, were such possible. It passed an act 
decreeing a more severe sentence against Lilburne 
than the one recited in the judgment against him. 
Lastly, the Speaker, by refusing a pass, endeavored 
to delay Lilburne in England until the attaint of 
felony took effect. ^^ j^ short, the House of Com- 
mons condemned along with Lilburne the most fun- 
damental principles of liberty known to English law. 

1* A Declaration Of Lieutenant Colonel John Lilbiirn, Jan. 22, 1651/2 
E. 652 (1). 

^^ Apologeticd Narration, p. 59. The judgment had decreed his 
banishment in terras that might be construed to exclude Wales from 
the places from which he was banished. The act added Wales, and cut 
down to twenty the thirty days' grace before the felony took effect. 
Lilburne's friends paid some attention to his banishment. They peti- 
tioned Parliament in his behalf; 669 f. 16 (37). A doubtful authority 
states that some of the officers and soldiers were wilhng to stand and 
fall with him. A Declaration Of The Armie, E. 654 (11), Feb. 14, 
1651/2. See also The French Intelligencer, Jan. 13-21, 1651/2. Lilburne 
says that he wrote from Dover a letter to divers trustworthy men of 
different opinions "who are very Zealous for the speedy electing of a 
New Parliament in England." They were John Feak, John Simson, 
William Kifhn. Supra, p. 238. 



LEVELLER CONSTITUTIONAL THEORIES 333 

Lllbume's relations with the Royalists in Holland 
are the only circumstances of his banishment which 
are of interest to us; they are important as an indi- 
cation of the extent of the Royalist tendencies of 
the Levellers. The Royalists as a rule were inclined 
to hold aloof from Lilburne, believing his banish- 
ment was a farce devised to increase his value as a 
spy upon them.^^ Pamphlets written against him 
by spies of the Council of State induced the more 
ignorant Cavaliers to believe that he was mainly 
responsible for the king's death. Accordingly Lil- 
burne ran actual dangers of being "Dorislawed," 
as the Dutch Spy put it.^* By his account he could 
devise no better way of avoiding such a fate than by 
putting himself in the company of the more moder- 
ate Cavaliers, such as Buckingham, Hopton, Percy, 

^^ " W. R." to Edgman, Feb. 20, 1652, n. s.. Calendar Clarendon Papers, 
II, 121. Dec. 2-12, 1652, Nicholas wrote: "it is now evident to all 
men that the rogue Lilburne was banish'd England merely to gain him 
credit and trust on this side." Nicholas Papers, I, 321. 

^* For instance, Captain Wendy Oxford in Vincit qui patitur accused 
Lilburne of having raised riots at Whitehall to murder the king and 
queen. Lilburne claimed that these statements really endangered his 
life. A Defensive Declaration, p. 14. He also insisted that another spy, 
Riley by name, had repeatedly attempted to murder him. Scot, the 
Commonwealth "intelligence master," at the Restoration confessed that 
he had set Oxford and Riley to spy on Lilburne. English Historical 
Review, XII, 120. See also the Dutch Spy, Mar. 17-25, 1652. 

Curiously enough, Oxford, b'ke Lilburne, had been banished by Parlia- 
ment without a hearing. This was his punishment for a minor part 
in a swindle in which Lord Howard of Escrick was involved. Lilburne 
had approved Parliament's sentence on Escrick as a notable piece of 
justice. Escrick had been heard before being sentenced, and perhaps 
Lilburne did not know of Oxford's case. Here, however, Godwin has 
more excuse than he ordinarily has for accusing Lilburne of incon- 
sistency; but he hardly sees his opportunity. Ill, 341. 



334 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

and Colepepper. In spite of Lilburne's cautiously 
worded denials, there is credible evidence that he 
proposed to these men that the king grant the 
demands of the Levellers and recover his crown by 
their aid. Certainly, if Lilburne proposed such 
terms, the negotiations went little farther ; and by 
1653 the strait-laced Royalists like Hyde and Nich- 
olas feared that Lilburne would seduce the Duke of 
Buckingham to compliance with the Commonwealth. 
In fact, Lilburne counseled the duke and his friends 
as to the best way of making their peace with Crom- 
well and the Rump.^^ All in all it is not likely 
that Lilburne was ever deeply engaged in plots 
with Royalists; but, on the other hand, the evidence 
indicates that he made advances to them. 

The reasons that led Lilburne to attempt to 
return to England after a year's banishment are 
not easy to fathom. His statements were contra- 
dictory. During the first year of his banishment 
there was no mistaking Lilburne's estimate of 

^^ A Defensive Declaration, pp. 15, 16; Cal. Clarendon Papers, II, 213; 
Hyde to Nicholas, Nicholas Papers, I, 301. A second set of spies, Titus, 
Birkenhead, Bartlet, and Float testified that Lilburne had offered with 
£10,000 to restore the king. This is partially corroborated by Nicholas. 
Nicholas Papers, I, 291. The spies also told of Lilburne's threats to 
cut Cromwell off like a fox or wolf, and his attempts to murder them. 
Severall Informations, July 13, 1653, E. 705 (14). The RoyaUsts in 
1652 believed that Lilburne had some design on Cromwell. Cal. Claren- 
don Papers, II, 146. Certainly Lilburne up to the moment of his re- 
turn to England in 1653 was engaged in conferences with Buckingham. 
Ibid., pp. 213, 223. In A Defensive Declaration Lilburne denied his 
complicity with the Royalists in terms that, as Gardiner suggests, 
would not have excluded the case of his making overtures which they 
rejected. Malice detected, in Printing certain Informations, July 15, 
1653, E. 705 (19). 



LEVELLER CONSTITUTIONAL THEORIES 335 

Cromwell's character and aims. He printed letters 
to his friends and to his wife in which he denounced 
Cromwell as a tyrant and berated Mrs. Lllburne 
for her efforts to secure from Cromwell and Haselrig 
his recall. He promised at one time the speedy 
publication of a chef-d'oeuvre that would reveal 
Cromwell to all the world in his true light. He 
even contemplated killing the tyrant. ^^ But, after 
Lllburne had the news of Cromwell's coup d'etat of 
April, 1653, the tone of his expressions changed 
from day to day. May 14 (n. s.), he congratulated 
Cromwell on his resolution to set England free at 
last, and respectfully pleaded for an interview. 
June 2 (n. s.), he accused Cromwell of seeking his 
life for seven years, and engaged, if he might come 
to London, to answer him as a Christian or as a 
sturdy fellow accordingly as Cromwell should elect. 
June 14 (n. s.), he assured the Council of State that 
he would live quietly in England if they fulfilled 
their purpose of establishing England's liberties; 
otherwise, he promised them the opposition of his 
personal following. When he actually was in Eng- 
land, he wrote to Cromwell, June 14 (o. s.), apolo- 
gizing for his hard words on the ground that his 
mind had been clouded with suffering, and that he 
had been misinformed as to Cromwell's real political 
intentions. At this time he assigned as the reason 
for his return his intention of petitioning the new 

^•L. Colonel John Lilburne revived, pp. 9, 13-15. This masterpiece 
was to be an appeal to the people. It may be noted in this connection 
that the spies represented that the £10,000 with which he would restore 
the king was to be spent in printing attacks on the Rump. 



336 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

Parliament to revoke the sentence passed against 
him by the Rump. Lilburne's accounts of the mo- 
tives prompting his actions are usually more accu- 
rate than they at first appear, but his explanations 
on this occasion were strangely contradictory.^^ 

Cromwell was not to be appeased. He ordered 
the lord mayor of London to issue a mittimus 
against Lilburne, who accordingly found himself in 
prison again. Repeated petitions by Lilburne ob- 
tained him only the grace of being held over for 
trial till after the Nominated Parliament had met. 
The government was apparently in no mood for 
trifling. ^^ 

Since the Nominated Parliament did not see fit 
to revoke the act passed by the Rump to carry out 
its sentence of banishment against Lilburne, that 
act took its due course, A grand jury in pursuance 
of the act, which declared Lilburne a felon if he 
were found in England twenty days after the 
15th day of January, 1651/2, found a true bill 
against him. On July 13 he was brought to trial 
before the regular sessions under the indictment. 
If he pleaded to the indictment, the jury had only 
to find that he was the John Lilburne named in the 
act of banishment; this done, his condemnation and 
execution would naturally follow under the act 
itself.19 

^'' A Defensive Declaration; The Upright Mans Vindication, Aug. 5, 
1653, E. 708 (22), pp. 3, 25; The Banished mans suit Jar Protection, June 
15, 1653, 669 f. 17 (16). 

15 A Second Address directed to his Excellency the Lord Generall Crom- 
well, June 16, 1653, 669 f. 17 (20); Third Address directed to his Excel- 
lency, June 20, 1653, 669 f. 17 (22). 

^^ State Trials, Y, 416. 



LEVELLER CONSTITUTIONAL THEORIES 337 

The succeeding nine weeks' legal struggle between 
the prisoner and the government stirred London 
to its depths. It was to no purpose that the gov- 
ernment published depositions of its spies accusing 
Lilburne of traffic with the Royalists; his old asso- 
ciates rallied round him. Prince and Overton, as 
well as Lilburne's father, uncle, and cousins attended 
and supported him in court. His friends published 
pamphlet after pamphlet in his behalf. They swore 
the day of his execution would be the bloodiest that 
London had ever seen. They scattered about the 
streets tickets with the motio: 

And what, shall then honest John Lilbourn die? 
Threescore thousand will know the reason why. 

The precautions taken by the government also 
proved the depth of popular feeling. At the July 
session of the trial the authorities kept three regi- 
ments about St. James; at the August session they 
filled the court with soldiers. It was rumored at 
the time that six or seven hundred armed men were 
in the courtroom ready to rescue the prisoner by 
force if need were.^*^ 

The reason for this excitement must be sought in 
the principles at stake in Lilburne's case. When 

^^ State Trials, V, 417, 420, 426, 432^33. Between June 24 and 
August 10, seven printed petitions in his behalf appeared. 669 f. 17 
(24, 26, 35, 36, 38, 43), E. 710 (5). Cal. Clarendon Pap., II, 224; 
Thurloe State Papers, I, 367, 435, 442. 

Numbers of pamphlets appeared. Lilburne himself printed A Jury- 
man's Judgement and Lieu Col. John Lilburn's Plea in Law. After 
giving away many copies, he took to selling them through hawkers. 
The Prisoner's Most mournful Cry, July 1, 1653, E. 703 (12). 



338 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

he was first brought into court, Lilburne began to 
claim privileges hitherto unused in English criminal 
procedure. He refused to plead to the indictment, 
alleging that he wished to assign errors in it. Next, 
he demonstrated out of Sir Edward Coke his right 
to a copy of the indictment and to the advice of 
counsel in preparing exceptions to it. He extorted 
both these things from the court, being the first 
man in the history of English law to obtain them.'^' 

Of the four exceptions he offered, two were more 
or less technical in their nature, and two were based 
on broad principles of law. The first and last ex- 
ceptions recited that the indictment did not satis- 
factorily identify the John Lilburne it named with 
the man against whom the act was passed, and 
further, that it did not state the act in question to 
be an act of an English Parliament. The second 
and third exceptions to the act were fundamental. 
The second alleged that the act recited an illegal 
judgment, as Lilburne had never been indicted, 
summoned, or set to plead to an indictment. The 
third alleged that tlie act did not agree with the 
judgment on which it was based, either as to the 
time at which the banishment should take effect, 
or as to the places from which Lilburne was to be 
banished." 

A still higher demand to which Lilburne's lawyers 
had prompted him, finally postponed his trial a 
month. This demand was for oyer of the act and 
judgment, and also of the crimes they recited. The 

^^ State Trials, Y, 417-421. 
^Ubid., pp. 437-439. 



LEVELLER CONSTITUTIONAL THEORIES 339 

court, which had shown throughout a tendency to 
quibble and evade, refused to hear the demand till 
it was signed by Lilburne's counsel. Lilburne, on 
the other hand, refused to hand in his exceptions 
until oyer was granted him. After a long and fu- 
rious wrangle, in which the judges, Lilburne, and 
his friends all took part, court and prisoner com- 
promised. Lilburne handed in the exceptions to 
the indictment on the understanding that his doing 
so should not prejudice his right to oyer of the act 
when his counsel should demand it. Because his 
case was a crucial one, Lilburne had the popular 
support that enabled him to confront his judges on 
equal terms. -^ 

When the trial was resumed in August on the 
court's return from circuit, the judges finally com- 
pelled Lilburne to plead to the indictment. Of 
the process by which this result was obtained, we 
have only fragmentary accounts. We know that 
Lilburne's exceptions and demand for oyer were 
finally over-ruled, as was to have been expected. 
However, the long struggle on the legal points 
involved had apparently converted the jury to the 
justice of Lilburne's cause, and August 20 it re- 
turned a verdict of not guilty. ^^ 

The Harraton colliery case had raised a storm 
of public sentiment, because the Rump in punishing 

^^ stale Trials, V, 426-442. 

2*0^. ciL, pp. 443-444; The Tryall Of L. Col. lohn Lilhiirn At The 
Sessions House in the Old-Baily, E.711 (9). Lilburne, on the 11th, ex- 
cepted to the act on the ground that it was not engrossed, and was 
on interlined and pieced papers. 



340 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

Lilburne had violated principles of civil freedom, 
and Lilburne had shown his old skill in dinning 
those principles into the ears of the people. His 
reiteration of the ancient liberties and laws of 
England was welcome to all men tired of the 
anarchy and confusion of past years. ^^ The con- 
stitutional and political arguments advanced in his 
behalf pressed home the fact that the Rump, per- 
haps also its successor, the Council of State, fol- 
lowed as much after the rule of government as ever 
Strafford or Laud had done.^^ Indeed, Lilburne 
and his friends reverted to the earliest position of 
the Long Parliament when they insisted that in 
spite of revolutions the fundamental laws of the 
land endured, and were greater than the govern- 
ment. 

The circumstances of Lilburne's case demanded 
a recurrence to the fundamental principles of the 
constitution. As in 1649, the point really at issue 
was the constitutional validity of a political act 
of the highest authority of the nation. Unless 
Lilburne's jury could be induced to take account 
of the legality of the Rump's sentence and act of 
banishment, Lilburne would stand condemned 
without a hearing. If the jury ignored the flaws 
in the indictment; if it refused to consider the na- 
ture of the actions that Parliament had pronounced 
felonious, and the evidence on which it had con- 

2^ Cal. Clarendon Papers, II, 234; Thurloe Papers, I, 368. It was 
obvious that the Levellers were bound to criticise the Rump; but in 
some of their writings they criticised sharply Cromwell's arbitrary 
assumption of power to tax, his nominating a Parhament, etc. A Plea 
at large, For John Lilburn Gentleman, Aug. 6, 1653, E. 710 (3). 



LEVELLER CONSTITUTIONAL THEORIES 341 

victed Lllburne, the jury could pass only on the 
identity of the Lieutenant-Colonel John Lilburne 
named in the act with the John Lilburne arraigned 
at the bar.2^ Lilburne and his friends, in urging 
the court to take cognizance of the points raised 
in his exceptions, can not have expected to over- 
come its prejudice against the prisoner. Rather 
they hoped to awake the jury to the important 
constitutional duty that lay before it. That duty 
was in part to judge of the law as well as of the 
facts. It was also to weigh the comparative valid- 

2' As from a certain viewpoint this was the only question on which 
the jury could pass, Lilburne's friends occasionally used it rhetorically 
as a pretext to introduce the legal grounds on which Lilburne had taken 
his stand. The Lilburne at the bar, they said, is not the same as the 
Lilburne mentioned in the act; for the former is a free-born English 
gentleman and never was legally charged, indicted, or convicted by the 
Parliament or any other court of judicature, being a court of record. 
The Lilburne at the bar was never summoned to any legal tribunal to 
say what he could why sentence should not be passed against him. 
The Parliament that sentenced Lilburne — here they play on his first 
exception — was not that which had sworn so often to maintain the 
fundamental laws; rather it was some ignorant Parliament of Paris, or 
else the act was jumbled together and passed by a Parliament three- 
fourths asleep against "some sillie natural fool called Lieu. Col John 
Lilburn, that could not be imagined ever in his life to have read any 
thing of Law or Reason." Lieu Col. John Lilburn's Plea in Law, pp. 
1-4. A Plea at large, For John Lilburn. 

All this may seem a labor of love. But Dr. Gardiner, because 
Lilburne denied his identity in this fashion, gravely charges him with 
either telling a downright lie or prevaricating. Commonwealth and 
Protectorate, II, 248. The sense in which Lilburne denied his identity 
must be clear to anyone from the above. "Although John Lilburn 
Gent, now prisoner at the bar were that Lieut. Col. John Lilburn men- 
tioned in the said Act of Banishment, (as with confidence, for the just 
and legal reasons at the beginning of this Plea mentioned, he doth avow 
he is not)." A Plea at large, For John Lilburn, p. 23. The italics in 
the quotation are mine. 



342 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

ity of an act of the supreme authority, and the 
fundamental laws of the land. 

In the floods of pamphlets containing such doc- 
trine, there reappeared the old Leveller idea that 
in England the government was bound by funda- 
mental laws. Lilburne and his friends proved that 
in many respects the proceedings against him in 
1651/2 had violated the laws of the land." He 
had been sentenced as a felon for that which was 
not felony at the common law; he had been con- 
demned without being confronted by an accuser, 
set to plead to an indictment before a court of 
record, allowed to speak in his own behalf, or 
suffered to enjoy the benefit of a jury. He and his 
supporters used Sir Edw^ard Coke's authority to 
demonstrate that an act of Parliament contrary to 
the common law was null and void.^^ They had 
an answer to the possible rejoinder that the sword 
had swallowed up the common law. They returned 
to their earlier doctrine that on points of civil lib- 
erty the common law itself was but a statement of 
the law of God and the law of reason. These laws 
the sword could not abrogate; the old dialogue of 
the Doctor and Student taught that any act or 
law contrary to them was null, void, and of no 
effect." 

'"' Apologetical Narration, p. 16; A Jury-man's Judgement Upon the 
Case of Lieut. Col. John Lilburn, June 22, 1653, E. 702 (6). 

2* The Petition Rejected by the Parliament, 669 f. 17 (24); Lieu Col 
John Lilburn's Plea in Law, July 2, 1653, E. 703 (12), pp. 4 ff. 

"TAe Afflicted Mans Out Cry, Aug. 19, 1653, E. 711 (7), pp. 2, 3; 
A Plea at large. For John Lilburn, Aug. 6, 1653, E. 710 (3), p. 4; More 
Light To Mr. John Lilburnes Jury, Aug. 16, 1653, E. 710 (23), p. 5. 



LEVELLER CONSTITUTIONAL THEORIES 343 

However, Lilburne's supporters had proclaimed 
such doctrine in the past; they had now to frame a 
method by which the law of God, the law of reason, 
and the common law might adjudge void an act or 
law contravening them. The Levellers had for- 
merly taught that the minds of all men were capable 
of detecting by the light of reason a violation of 
the law of reason. The exigencies of Lilburne's 
case led his friends to assign this function to his 
jury. ^ 

Various pamphlets addressing the men who were 
to serve on Lilburne's jury told them that their 
duty as a jury was to distinguish real acts of Parlia- 
ment from those against law and, therefore, coun- 
terfeit. The jury must not be misled into a belief 
that such acts of Parliament were good law until 
repealed. They must not make the mistake that 
juries had done in the cases of Barrow and Green- 
wood. Lilburne's jurors must remember that it 
was the duty of jurymen "not to find any man 
guilty upon any statute in any case, which appears 
to have no good ground upon the standing Law of 
England. "3" 

In several other such pamphlets as the above, 
the emphasis seems to be, not on the duty of a jury 
as a jury to judge of law as well as fact, but on the 
duty of a court to refuse to recognize as law that 
which is not law. In 1648 Lilburne had preached 
a similar doctrine, when he argued that King's 
Bench had the right to reverse an illegal commit- 

2° A Jury-man's Judgement, pp. 1 1 £E. ; More Light To Mr. John Lilburnes 
Jury. 



344 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

ment by the High Court of Parliament; in 1653 
we find his doctrine much elaborated. One writer 
sees that the legislative and judicial powers take 
their rise from the people, and are accordingly 
coordinate. "For," he says, "the People in gen- 
eral have all Law and Authority within them- 
selves, managing their publike Affaires by their own 
elected Parliaments or Common councels of Eng- 
land (2) Judging, deciding, and determining all 
Matters and Causes whatsoever by their Juries."'^ 

An objection may be raised at this point. If men 
had the idea that the deciding in a specific case 
whether or not an act of Parliament contravened 
the fundamental law was the function of a judiciary, 
why did they put their emphasis on the duty as 
belonging to the jury? The answer is simple. At 
the time, the jury was the only part of the court 
certain to be impartial in a political case. In fact, 
one pamphlet of 1653 warned the jury that it must 
not look to judge or recorder for direction, for these 
ofificers were controlled by the fear of losing their 
places. The jury must rely only on itself in the 
work of preserving the ancient laws and liberties 
of England "from the tyranny of By-Laws or 
Parliament Innovations. "^^ 

A certain Captain Robert Norwood saw more 
clearly than all other writers that the function of 

^' The quotation is from The Fundamental Lawes and Liberties Of 
England Claimed, asserted, and agreed unto, by sever all Peaceable Persons 
of the City of London, Westminster, Southwark, Hamblets, and Places 
adjacent; Commonly called Levellers, July 9, 1653, E. 705 (5), p. 1. See 
also More Light To Mr. John Lilburnes Jury. 

^2 More Light To Mr. John Lilburnes Jury, p. 8. 



LEVELLER CONSTITUTIONAL THEORIES 345 

judging of the accord of statutes with the funda- 
mental law pertained to a jury as part of a judiciary 
rather than to a jury as a jury. Answering the 
question as to who were judges on such questions, 
he said: "Why all Englishmen, the whole People 
of England, in and by their several Courts and 
officers, as in and by their Hundred-Courts, County- 
Courts, Courts of Inquest, Sheriffs, Juryes and the 
like." "Yet mistake me not. This dislike or dis- 
approving of such Acts is to be manifested and 
regulated in a due and orderly way and manner, 
as to, in and by the Courts and officers appointed 
thereunto, as is said before; for as in the natural 
body so in this civil are their several offices, and 
officers, as eyes, hands, head, feet, heart and the 
like."33 

Here the constitutional ideas that we have termed 
Leveller ideas reach their climax. In 1640 Parlia- 
ment had taught the people that there were funda- 
mental laws in England, but when in 1642 it assumed 
the right to interpret them in last appeal, it had 
virtually set itself above them. It had then found 
adherents to argue for its untrammelled sover- 
eignty. Five years later it had found in Ireton an 
advocate of parliamentary supremacy, limited only 
by recurring popular elections. The Levellers had 
steadily combated such ideas. In 1645 they had 
taught that Parliament must walk according to the 

^^ An Additional Discourse Relating unto a Treatise lately published 
by Capt. Robert Norwood, Aug. 2, 1653, E. 708 (9), p. 48. Yet he admits 
to a certain extent that every man is judge in so far as a law concerns 
himself. 



346 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

law. In 1647, in the Agreement of the People, 
they had attempted to limit the Parliament by a 
fundamental law stated by the people. In 1648 
and 1649 they had devised a means whereby the 
people, acting in its sovereign capacity, might make 
and adopt for itself a written constitution of para- 
mount law. They had failed in attempts to estab- 
lish the fundamental laws of the realm in this man- 
ner; but they added the capstone to their theory 
when in 1653 they devised the means whereby acts 
of Parliament traversing the fundamental law of 
the land might be declared in orderly fashion null, 
void, and of no effect. In 1653 they had answered 
the question that had perplexed Hunton in 1644. 

NOTE 

The Sentence against Lilburne 

It is almost impossible to find a hypothesis that will explain satis- 
factorily all the incidents of the Rump's sentence in Lilburne's case. 
First, it is hard to see why Lilburne was singled out for exemplary 
punishment. He had neither written Primate's petition nor seen to 
printing it. He had merely avowed it and distributed printed copies 
to members of the House and to other persons. Yet Parliament pro- 
ceeded against the other counsel concerned only after it had sentenced 
Lilburne. There were strange things about the entire procedure of Par- 
Uament. The act for Lilburne's banishment was passed without being 
engrossed. The fact that it was passed early in the morning, at a 
time when few members ordinarily had arrived, suggests that there was 
some trick connected with it. Marten and Moyle, two men in sympathy 
with Lilburne, were members of the committee to which the bill in 
execution of the judgment was referred. In passing the bill unengrossed, 
and with a different penalty from that described in the judgment, they 
may have designedly left loop-holes for Lilburne's benefit at some later 
time. Commons Journal, VII, 55, 64, 71, 73, 74, 75, 78, 79, Dec. 23, 
Jan. 6, 15, 16, 20, 21, 29, 30, 1651/2. 



LEVELLER CONSTITUTIONAL THEORIES 347 

In February of 1658/9, Parliament undertook the task of reversing 
the sentence against Lilburne. Haselrig and one of the four Haber- 
dashers' Hall committee members agreed to surrender all claim to their 
shares of Lilburne's fine. Two other members were dead, and Mrs. 
Lilburne compromised with a fourth. The fine settled, the act was 
finally repealed, several members of Parliament stating emphatically 
their belief in its illegal character and questioning whether it were not 
void in itself. The fact that Mrs. Lilburne agreed to surrender all 
papers connected with the case suggests that justice and equity may 
not have been wholly on Haselrig's side. Burton's Diary, III, 68, 503. 



CHAPTER XII 

Conclusion 

i. the end of the leveller movement 

^T^HE acquittal of Lilburne in 1653 is the logical 
-■■ end of this narrative. December of that 
year saw the installation of Cromwell as Lord Pro- 
tector; and his government adopted repressive 
measures that completely changed the character of 
the Leveller political activities. By defying the 
forms and equity of law, and holding Lilburne 
almost to the day of his death as a military prisoner, 
Cromwell effectually kept the arch-Leveller from 
further participation in politics. Moreover, by an 
effective censorship of the press, the Protector 
frustrated the democratic political methods of the 
Leveller party. Political discussion became timid 
and academic; and the old Leveller leaders, unable 
longer to influence the nation through the press, 
entered into plots with the Royalists. The remnant 
of the Leveller organization degenerated from a 
political party to a band of conspirators.^ 

As we can no longer trace the Levellers as a party, 
so we catch only occasional glimpses of their salient 
ideas. The idea of the sovereignty of law survived 

^ The decrease in the number of pamphlets published tells a part of 
the story. For the years 1654-58 Thomason's collection contains 3,041 
pieces as against 7,583 for the years 1645-49. The difference in tone is 
even more striking; except for defenses of the government, pohtical 
discussion in the later period is weak and non-committal. 

348 



CONCLUSION 349 

the longest. Partly no doubt this was due to the 
tone of the set apologies published for the Nomi- 
nated Parliament and the Protectorate. These 
apologies defended the coups d'etat of April and 
December of 1653 with the argument that Marcha- 
mont Nedham had used to cover his apostasy — 
the divine right of superior force. The Rump, 
they said, for four years had been a mere mask for 
the army; now the mask had better be dropped, and 
authority rest with the men who had the might to 
rule.^ Similarly when Cromwell was installed Lord 
Protector, pamphleteers justified his elevation as 
an act of divine Providence, using the term in the 
Cromwellian sense of a favorable turn of mundane 
affairs. They condemned the discarded Bare- 
bones' Parliament because it had worked blindly 
under divine providences that were not of the 
Cromwellian order. Finally, one author announced 
that, since it had manifestly been the will of God to 
turn the realm from the government of kings to the 
government of judges, the people must submit.* 
When the acts of New Model regiments in estab- 
lishing and overturning governments were to be 
reverenced as the dictates of divine Providence, 

* The Army Vindicated, John Spittlehouse, Apr. 24, 1653, E. 693 
(1) ; Reasons Why The Supreme Authority Of The Three Nations . . . 
Is not in the Parliament, Bui In the . . . . Councel of State, May. 
1653, E. 697 (19); The Army No Usurpers, May 20, 1653, E. 697 (13); 
A Letter Written To a Gentleman in the Country, May 16, 1653, E. 697 
(2), is more moderate. 

3 The Gratvi Catastrophe, Jan. 18, 1653/4, E. 726 (12); A True State 
of the Case Of The Commonwealth, Feb. 8, 1653/4, E. 728 (5); Protec- 
tion Perswading Subjection, Feb. 13, 1653/4, E. 729 (4); Confusion 
Confounded, Jan. 18, 1653/4, E. 726 (11). 



350 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

men with respect for the sanctity of law might be 
pardoned for exaggerating the element of perma- 
nence in the ancient constitution. 

The books of Captain Robert Norwood illustrate 
the extreme to which, as a result of the events of 
1653, men carried the notion of fundamental law. 
To Norwood every good thing in the universe is 
regulated in every particular by law. All created 
things derive their being from their bounds and 
limits. Even God himself has consented to bind 
himself "within the golden chains of Justice and 
Righteousness." As he has made nature's laws, 
he cannot violate them ; nay, accord with law seems 
almost the divine attribute, for he that is without 
law is rather a devil or destroyer.^ 

In applying his theory of law to civil government, 
Norwood finds the one basis of political order in the 
authority of parents over their children. By anal- 
ogy every man owes obedience to the laws of the 
realm as to his fathers, "for our forefathers, and 
we in and with our forefathers, and our forefathers 
in and with us will be found in the Laws, Ordinances, 
Customs, and Constitutions . . . ." It fol- 
lows that a nation has no power to abrogate such 
of its laws as correspond to the law of nature, and 
therefore may lay claim to paternal authority. So 
far fathers may bind their children with irrepealable 
laws, unamendable by parliaments and rulers, no 
matter how supreme. Indeed , it is the true function 
of governments to maintain the laws of the fathers, 

* An Additional Discourse, p. 2; A Pathway Unto England's Perfect 
Settlement, June 27, 1653, E. 702 (16), pp. 13, 14. 



CONCLUSION 351 

and preserve the happiness of the commonwealth 
by keeping every man within the limits duly or- 
dained by this paternal authority.^ 

Such conceptions of paramount law were com- 
pletely foreign to the political experiments of the 
Protectorate. Accordingly those experiments have 
no interest for us. True, the Instrument of Govern- 
ment and the Humble Petition and Advice in a sense 
were written constitutions; true, Cromwell, in com- 
menting on the former, had pronounced that in 
every government there must be "somewhat funda- 
mental, somewhat like a Magna Charta." But 
neither Instrument nor Advice reaches the consti- 
tutional standards set by the Levellers; neither 
originated with the people or had had their formal 
assent; neither could enforce itself; and Cromwell, 
in elaborating his comment on the Instruir.ent, 
showed that the "fundamental" he desired could 
be summed up in an oath not to disturb the govern- 
ment as established in Protector and Parliament. 
Sir Henry Vane's Healing Question, it is true, sug- 
gested a Leveller type of constitutional convention 
that implied the sovereignty of the people; but 
Vane's was well-nigh the only voice raised till after 
the death of Cromwell.^ 

^A Pathway, pp. 19-23; An Additional Discourse, pp. 7, 40^3. 

* Vane's Healing Question really revived many of the old Leveller 
ideas. He desired that power over conscience be withheld by the 
people from the government they were to erect. He demanded that the 
army submit quietly to such a government as the well-affected, meeting 
in a representative constitutional convention, should establish. There 
is an echo of 1648 in the proviso that the convention is not to exercise 
legislative power, but only to agree on particulars "that by way of 
fundamental! constitutions shall be laid, and inviolably observed as the 



352 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

There was a faint recrudescence of the Leveller 
ideas in 1659.^ The necessity of informing the 
people's ignorance of their natural rights,* the dan- 
ger from legislative and executive powers residing 
in the same hands, ^ the sovereignty of the people, 
the equality of all before the law^" — all appeared 
in that last year of confusion, mingled with many 
of the legal and social reforms that the Levellers 
had sought. But above all rang the cry for a funda- 
mental law that in some manner might be put 
beyond the power of government to amend. Pam- 
phlets announced that the people were sovereign, 
and by their consent must accordingly give validity 
to their frame of government or fundamental law. 
There were proposals for written constitutions to be 
framed by the sitting Parliament and subscribed 
by the people at large; proposals that the precious 
document be bound with the parish Bible and read 
to the people quarterly. ^^ Yet in these expedients 

conditions upon which the whole body so represented doth consent to 
cast itself into a ci\dl and politick incorporation." The constituent 
convention, according to Vane, is "of the people represented in their 
highest state of sovereignty." Soniers Tracts, VI, 312-313. 

^ Wildman and Maximilian Petty became members of the Rota, 
and probably carried their Leveller ideas with them to Harrington's 
debates. Wood, Athenae Oxonienses, III, 1119. 

^XXV Queries, Feb. 16, 1658/9, E. 968 (5), p. 1; Lilburns Ghost, 
June 22, 1659, E. 988 (9), p. 8. 

9 Ibid., p. 5. 

" Speculum Libertatis Angliae, July 13, 1659, E. 989 (19), p. 5. 
" Several Proposals, July 6, 1659, E. 989 (9); Speculum Libertatis, 
pp. 18 ff.; Englands Safety in the Laws Supremacy, June 23, 1659, E. 
988 (13), p. 16; No Return To Monarchy, June 6, 1659, E.986 (16), p. 6. 

For the demand for fundamental laws, see A Declaration Of the Well- 
afected to The Good Old Cause, May 2, 1659, 669 f. 21 (27); A Word of 
seasonable b- Sound Counsell, Nov. 14, 1659, 669 f. 22 (9). 



CONCLUSION 353 

one sees little more than the feverish haste of their 
proposers. The shadow of returning Royalism was 
indeed upon them, making them clutch frantically- 
after constitutional expedients that might avert it. 
Of course the devices proposed, if vain in 1647 and 
1649, were ten times more vain in 1659, after ten 
years of arbitrary government. In English con- 
stitutional history they are interesting as survivals 
of the idea that law may be set above govern- 
ment. 

Here the arch-Leveller may claim his word of 
dismissal. Cromwell saw to it that he should not 
again interfere in politics. In spite of the verdict 
that Lilburne had won from his jury, the govern- 
ment held him a prisoner during four years, moving 
him from fortress to fortress; and only by the chance 
of a temporary leave from Dover Castle in August 
of 1657 did it fall to Lilburne's fortune to die outside 
prison walls. For the last two years of his life he 
had been a Quaker; and, as though contention fol- 
lowed him to the very edge of the grave, his old 
adherents and the Quakers disputed whether his 
funeral should have something of the pomp that had 
marked Lockyer's. The Quakers prevailed; and 
without ceremony John Lilburne was borne on 
men's shoulders to the "new Church yard adjoyning 
to Bedlam. "12 

A few days after his acquittal in 1653, John 
Lilburne had written a pamphlet that was practi- 
cally his last political utterance — The Just Defence 
of John Lilburn, against Such as charge him with 

^^ Mercurius Politicus, Sept. 3, 1657. 



354 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

Turhulency of Spirit. ^^- He was still a young man, 
at most, hardly forty ; yet in writing his JustDefence 
he seemed almost conscious that his political career 
was at an end. He was assured as ever that his 
life had been a crusade for justice; but finally he 
seems not merely angry at the world's rejection of 
him and his principles, but puzzled and wounded. 
Once more he recounted the events of his life to 
show that he had been moved by the highest prin- 
ciples ; but at last he might well be uncertain whether 
he judged by the same standards as the world; 
uncertain, indeed, whether he might not have mis- 
understood the world altogether. 

In the last four years of Lilburne's life the public 
heard little of him, and indeed forgot the man and 
his ideas alike. He rapidly receded into an atmos- 
phere of legend and fable. The satirical will^^ that 
a Royalist published for him on a false rumor of his 
death in 1654 is not very unkind, but it is conde- 
scending. Lilburne is made to leave his brewer's 
tallies to the next brewer's clerk that can learn the 
art of "keeping within compass." His needle and 
thimble go to the next cloth-drawer that can resolve 
to follow his trade and not meddle with state affairs. 
His state policy he is permitted to bequeath to 
Charles H, that "it may be by him cancelled and 
turned into true obedience and submission to higher 
powers." "Lastly," concludes the satire, "I give 
my good Counsel to all men, to be carefull, and 

"Aug. 23, 1653, E. 711 (10). 

^* The Last Will &* Testament Of Lieutenant Col. John Lilhurn, May 
27, 1654, E. 738 (8). 



CONCLUSION 355 

rest content In their callings without medling, or 
intermedling with that which belongs not to them, 
or is too high for them, or beyond their proper 
Spheare or element .... acknowledging the 
necessity of a diversity and preheminence in degrees 
to be amongst men, for the necessary direction and 
preservation of them . . . ." The very mock- 
ery heaped upon democracy in the person of Lil- 
burne proves how completely his life had sunk the 
younger son of a landed gentleman and the lieu- 
tenant-colonel of the Parliament in the democratic 
leader. In John Lilburne the unknown satirist had 
condemned as presumption the democratic spirit 
that had arisen in 1642. That spirit had taught the 
lowliest that it was their duty to strive for the 
nation's welfare; it had breathed life into the words 
of the Solemn League and Covenant that had bound 
all who took it to strive in their respective stations 
in life for a perfect reformation. But now the time 
was approaching when the old aristocratic theory, 
that it was the duty of the lowly to follow the bid- 
ding of their betters, would have its day again. 

There had ever been two men in Lilburne, the 
warrior and the mystic. Once cut off from the 
battle of politics, the warrior was displaced by the 
mystic, and John Lilburne, the crusader, became a 
Quaker. Perhaps as years of imprisonment broke 
down his bodily vigor, he lost his old faith in his 
ability to force the world into justice and righteous- 
ness ;^^ in such a mood he would welcome the Quaker 

i^The idea is suggested by Bernstein, Sozialismus und Demokratie, 
p. 204. 



356 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

belief in the power of patience and long-sufTering. 
Lilburne's conversion was the signal that the spirit 
of his age had broken him, even as the spirit of the 
Elizabethan age had broken Robert Browne before 
him. Living in a time when the Great Civil War had 
rent the conventions of English life and thought 
from top to bottom, Lilbume had been able to exert 
a stronger influence than Browne on the passing 
turn of events. But in the end the influence of 
either man must be sought in later generations than 
his own. 

II. CONCLUSION 

The preceding eleven chapters of this essay have 
avowedly been a sympathetic account of the Level- 
lers and their part in the history of the Great Civil 
War. Here no apology appears necessary for such 
a treatment of the subject; but in these last pages 
it may be fitting to attempt an impartial estimate 
of the Leveller ideas with respect to their practica- 
bility in their own age, and their abiding worth. It 
will be proper also to attempt an exact statement 
of the political importance of the Levellers in their 
own generation, and thereby dispel any exaggerated 
ideas of their importance to which ihe foregoing 
treatment by its emphasis may have given rise. 

First, a word may be said about the application 
of the term "Leveller." By contemporaries it was 
used very loosely. Here it has been somewhat 
arbitrarily assigned to a group of political radicals, 
gathered around the persons of Lilburne and his 
friends, closely enough knit together to be called a 



CONCLUSION 357 

political party, more or less consistent advocates of 
certain political measures and principles. The 
author believes that too great liberty has not been 
taken in such a use of the word. While the person- 
nel of the party changed, the organization persisted 
and the principles in orderly and logical sequence 
were evolved in new applications to meet the pass- 
ing exigencies of the political situation; and the 
combination of organization and ideas was the core 
of the somewhat hazy image that the word ' ' Level- 
ler" suggested to contemporaries. 

When we inquire further exactly what are the 
ideas that we have termed "Leveller," we have 
first to exclude from consideration a number of 
beliefs that the Levellers held in common with 
other groups of men. Thus, the Levellers generally 
favored a republican form of government ; but they 
regarded it always as a means to an end, and were 
not drawn from their principles into supporting the 
Commonwealth with the so-called republicans. 
Further, the Levellers were advocates of toleration; 
but the consensus of historical opinion has selected 
Cromwell as the incarnation of the idea of religious 
toleration in the mid-seventeenth century. It is 
true also that the Levellers announced a far-reach- 
ing program of social and economic reforms; but 
they shared it with many contemporaries like Hugh 
Peters who were their political opponents. 

It is most difficult to distinguish between the 
Leveller and the New Model soldier. There was 
truth in William Sedgwick's^'' saying that the Level- 

^' The Leaves of the Tree Of Life, p. 101. 



358 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

ler had developed out of the army. For example, 
the idea of the first Agreement of the People, though 
developed by Lilbume's group, appears to have 
originated in the ranks; and New Model debaters 
in the army councils afford us light on Leveller 
theories. Yet In later years the soldiers were tossed 
to and fro on waves of doctrine between an abstract 
republicanism and a saintly fanaticism of Fifth 
Monarchy type, two intellectual states that have 
already been distinguished from that of the Leveller. 
Indeed it is well-nigh impossible to frame an intel- 
lectual definition that fits the New Model soldier 
universally, although the general impression that 
a distinct New Model type existed is probably 
correct. In a previous chapter the New Model 
private was defined as the child of an age of transi- 
tion. As such his thinking was uncertain and con- 
tradictory; by contrast the ideas of the Levellers 
were sharp and distinct. 

The Leveller rationalism gave a clear outline to 
the Leveller ideas. The Levellers' faith in reason 
led them to penetrate through centuries of mere 
precedents to the dawn of society, when man's 
innate reason was still free from the shackles of 
hereditary usage. Individualists in politics, the 
Levellers naturally constructed their theories of the 
ideal state of nature and the compact origin of 
government, that they might demonstrate tlie limi- 
tation of the power of government over individual 
men, and the right of each individual to a share of 
political power. Believing that the law of nature 
and the law of reason had survived the state of 



CONCLUSION 359 

nature to assure the sanctity of individual rights, 
the Levellers pronounced the laws of the land valid 
only in so far as they were a restatement of these 
higher laws. Finally, in the Agreements of the 
People the Levellers proposed that the people estab- 
lish a democratic form of government, limited and 
restrained by an exact written statement of the 
laws of nature and of reason. 

Furthermore, in attempting to accomplish their 
program, the Levellers invented political machinery 
of permanent value. They evolved the idea of the 
written constitution of paramount law as a limita- 
tion on the power of government. They devised 
machinery whereby the sovereignty of the people 
might express itself in the framing and acceptance 
of such written constitutions. Carrying their con- 
cept of government by law to its extreme, they de- 
signed the enforcement of their constitutions, like 
all other laws, through the courts. Lastly, for 
spreading their principles they designed a demo- 
cratic party organization that suggests the commit- 
tee of correspondence of the American Revolution. 

The distinctly Leveller measures of reform were 
also political. The Levellers stood for a number 
of judicial principles on which the contemporary 
law was at best contradictory: trial by jury, the 
right of the prisoner to counsel and copy of indict- 
ment, his right to refuse to incriminate himself. 
And all these are commonplaces of justice today. 
But the Levellers just as obstinately insisted on 
political reforms that were completely impracticable 
in their generation; reforms that would certainly 



360 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

have worked abiding harm if introduced. Thus 
the Levellers would have reformed the law until it 
was too simple to match the degree of complexity 
that contemporary society had attained. At times 
they proposed the abolition of all courts save the 
county and hundred courts; half consciously, half 
unconsciously, they designed the restoring of politi- 
cal and judicial institutions of the tenth century 
in the England of the seventeenth. 

On the other hand, however, their political pro- 
gram in its broader outlines was fitter for the twen- 
tieth century than for their own. It demanded that 
the rank and file of a nation untrained in democracy 
abandon the guidance of its traditional ruling classes 
and attempt self-government. The proposal was 
so colossal that we cannot say today that it was 
absolutely impracticable. Speaking materially, the 
Levellers at least showed a marked aptitude in 
adapting to their purposes whatever they could 
from the past customs and precedents familiar to 
the nation, and they may have rightly gauged the 
feasibility of their ideal. Speaking religiously, 
since faith may remove mountains, the Levellers 
might have established their democracy by faith. 

Finally, we may ask concerning the influence of 
the Levellers on their own and succeeding genera- 
tions. We need deal least in conjectures when we 
undertake to estimate the number of the party, 
and the circulation of its pamphlets. We know 
that at least four or five thousand people followed 
Lockyer's body to the grave; at least ten thousand 
persons signed certain Leveller petitions; we are 



CONCLUSIOS 361 

told on less certain authority' that others had forty 
thousand and even "98,064" signatures. Perhaps 
ten thousand is a safe estimate of the numbers of 
the Levellers in London. Levellers were numerous 
also in near-by shires such as Bucks, Hants, Berks, 
and Herts, and were to be found in more distant 
ones; but here we have no material on which to 
base an estimate. As for pamphlets, Lilbume 
printed the greatest part of 20,000 copies of the 
Manifestation and the Agreement of May i, 1649.^^ 
The Agreement was also printed in full in several 
non-Leveller journals as well as in the Moderate. 
The ordinary impression of a pamphlet was fifteen 
hundred copies.^* We must, however, remember 
that a single piece of printed matter found more 
readers then than now. "If a man," said Samuel 
Chidley, "print an Impression of fifteen hundred 
books, perad venture they may be spread to 15,000 
persons and leven them all."^^ Yet, after all, it was 
but a pitiful handful of persons with pitiful weapons 
that set forth to root up in a few years the prejudices 
and habits of thought of centuries. 

Passing from the degree to the kind of influence 
exerted by the Levellers on their contemporaries, 
we can set down as fairly certain the influence of 
their democracy. The idea that common men had 
ability^ to do more than accept and carry out the 
political decisions of their social superiors was a 
new one; yet in the democratic caucuses of the 

" Apologeiical Narration, p. 71. 

18 The Beacon Flameing, Dec. 15, 1652, E. 683 (30), p. 17. 

" The Dissembling Scot, Feb. 1, 1652, E. 652 (13), p. 9. 



362 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

Leveller party, high and low alike were free to take 
counsel and speak their minds for the good of the 
nation. Lilbume, when he bearded Lords of Star 
Chamber, Lords of Parliament, and counsellors of 
the Commonwealth alike for their transgressions 
of the law, must have weakened the instinctive 
reverence for social distinctions and the dignity of 
office in all who witnessed, whether they approved 
or disapproved. 

Moreover, the Levellers taught and inspired by 
their example the radicalism that has been an under- 
current in English politics from the American Rev- 
olution to our own day. A few lines in a volume of 
Lilburne's pamphlets suggest the story in a few 
words. They were written by William Hone, the 
radical bookseller-^" 

This Copy of John Lilburnes "Triall" with his ''Legal! 
Fundamental! Liberties of tlie People of England revived," 
and the other tracts forming the Volume, were collected and 
bound up by the late Mr. Jeremiah Joyce and often read 
by liim in the Tower of London, when he was Prisoner there 
on a charge of High Treason — for which reason, and because 
Lilbume was a man exceedingly after my own heart, I greatly 
prize the volume. 

W. Hone 
8 March 1820. 

But here the direct influence of the Leveller 
movement on English politics comes to an end. It 
was the constitutional theory of Parker and Ireton, 
and not the theory of the Agreement of the People 

20 The volume is in the library of the Guildhall, London. In the 
library of the University of Chicago there are several copies of Lilburne's 
books with Hone's autograph. 



CONCLUSION 363 

that prevailed. The Parliament supreme as repre- 
senting the sovereignty of the state, the Houses 
of Parliament absolute and unchecked — this is the 
English Parliament of the nineteenth century. 
The laws of nature and reason can check it only be- 
cause the members are rational men, and therefore 
amenable to reason ; therefore the members of Par- 
liament must themselves judge of the reason or 
unreason of their actions. The idea of a supreme 
law that commands their obedience is completely 
absent. A House of Parliament may today "vio- 
late the English constitution," and there is no con- 
stitutional remedy for its act. 

The Leveller constitutional theories, however, 
have not vanished from the world. Around the 
fundamental principle of the limitation of govern- 
ment by paramount law, the Levellers developed 
a body of constitutional and political doctrines 
that suggest the main theories of American consti- 
tutional law. The sovereignty of the people, the 
inalienable right of the individual, the binding 
force of paramount law, the enforcement of political 
law by judicial action — all of these are American 
doctrines. 

While no attempt will be made to establish any 
causal connection between the one body of doctrine 
and the other, it may be suggested that they have 
common origins. In introductory chapters the 
Leveller doctrines have been traced to two sources: 
the ancient theory of the English constitution as 
fundamental law, and the ecclesiastical polity of 
the Independents. In England, thanks to the social 



364 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

confusion of the Great Civil War, both ideas reached 
an early maturity m the political system of the 
Levellers. In the colony of Massachusetts Bay 
the strength of the Puritan oligarchy weakened 
only in the course of years after 1660; and the innate 
political tendencies in Congregationalism grew more 
slowly, but also more surely. Moreover, as the 
connection of New England with Old England was 
stronger before 1660 than in later years, New Eng- 
land's political development was in the intellectual 
atmosphere of the ancient theory of the fundamental 
law rather than in the newer world of parliamentary 
supremacy. Of course many other factors went to 
form New England's contribution to American con- 
stitutional theory. Even before 1640 the charter 
and the plantation covenant had shown how they 
might become the written constitutions of states. 
John Locke had his influence in the critical days of 
the American Revolution ; though John Locke merely 
said in 1690 what the Levellers had said in 1646. 
But, speaking broadly, may not the Leveller move- 
ment teach us that, while England was pledged to 
the supremacy of government by 1660, and while 
America a century later was led to the supremacy 
of law, the Anglo-Saxon race in 1640 stood at the 
parting of the ways between two theories, and might 
logically have adopted either? 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

A word of explanation appears necessary at the 
beginning of the bibliography. This essay deals 
with certain special phases of the Great Civil War 
on which the secondary material can be exhausted 
by the enumeration of a very few titles. On the 
other hand, general works on the period are legion; 
but they usually accord a very brief and conven- 
tional treatment to the Levellers and their ideas. 
Therefore, as far as secondary works are concerned, 
no attempt will be made to do more than estimate 
several standard general treatises, and the few 
monographs that relate to the subject under dis- 
cussion. 

The main source of the material on which this 
essay is based is the Thomason collection of pam- 
phlets in the British Museum. In view of the fact 
that a catalogue of the collection has been published, 
it seemed best to the Publication Committee of 
the American Historical Association, for the sake 
of space, to omit a selected bibliography of some 
seven hundred pamphlets that originally accom- 
panied this essay. At the first citation of each 
pamphlet-title in the text a full bibliographical 
notation has been given. This, it is thought, will 
suffice. The source bibliography in the following 
pages includes the documentary collections, print- 
ed manuscript collections, manuscript calendars 
and contemporary memoirs that have been used. 

365 



366 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL AIDS 

There is a general bibliography of the period 
1 640-1 660 in the Cambridge Modern History 
(New York, 1906), volume IV, 884-904. A much 
briefer one is in F. C. Montague's volume in the 
Political History of England for 1 603-1 660, (Lon- 
don, 1907). Among special bibliographies, in Notes 
and Queries for 1888 there is an admirable one by 
Edward Peacock of pamphlet material relating to 
Lilbume. Lilburne printed a partial list of his 
writings in The Innocent Man's second-Proffer (Lon- 
don, 1649). The lives in the Dictionary of National 
Biography furnish special bibliographies, good or 
bad, according to the author of the life in question. 
H. M. Dexter, The Congregationalism of the Last 
Three Hundred Years as seen in its Literature (New 
York, 1880) has a good list of Independent litera- 
ture. The Catalogue of the Thomason Tracts (2 vols., 
London, 1908) is an admirable guide to the great 
mass of pamphlet material. It is arranged chrono- 
logically, and takes advantage of Thomason's habit 
of dating his daily acquisitions to supply in the 
case of most tracts the day of publication. Its 
main defect is an insufHcient index that takes too 
little account of long titles and of the large number 
of tracts whose authorship is unknown or disputed. 
As occasionally a tract is put under a date suggested 
by the title or content rather than the date of pub- 
lication, one is often reduced to searching for a 
title by turning the leaves at random. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 367 



GENERAL WORKS 



Only the most notable histories of the Great 
Civil War can be named here. Dr. S. R. Gardi- 
ner's voluminous works of course have the claim 
to prior mention. They include the History of 
England from the Accession of James I. to the Out- 
break of the Civil War (lo vols., London, 1883- 
1884), the History of the Great Civil War (4 vols., 
London, 1898-1901), and the History of the Com- 
monwealth and Protectorate, 164Q-1660 (3 vols, in 4, 
London, 1894-1903). Gardiner wrote from ac- 
quaintance with a great body of source material, 
and wrote with as little bias as any man can. In 
fact his estimates of men and measures seem to fluc- 
tuate from time to time as the estimates of an open- 
minded and well-informed contemporary would 
have done. This fluctuation has been made the 
basis of an attack by Professor R. G. Usher (Amer- 
ican Historical Association, i?e^or/, I9i0,pp. 125 ff.). 
Professor Usher selects isolated sentences, whole 
volumes apart, subjects them to mathematical 
analysis, and finds them inconsistent. But in many 
cases such apparent contradictions are really correct 
statements of diff"erent aspects of the same truth. 
Bearing this in mind, the student seeking an ac- 
quaintance with contemporary thought will find 
Gardiner an inspiration.'^ At certain points in the 

^In A Critical Study of the Historical Method of Samuel Rawson 
Gardiner, ... By Roland G. Usher. [Washington Univ. Studies, 
III, Pt. II, No. 1.] St. Louis, 1915, pp. 159, the onus of the attack is 
rather on Gardiner's lack of a clear-cut concept of the constitution of 
the seventeenth century; and a better case is made out. 



368 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

present work an estimate different from Gardiner's 
has been put in evidence, but in each case it has 
been done with hesitation. In conclusion it may- 
be said that Gardiner generally adopts a favorable 
view of the motives and conduct of Lilburne and 
the Levellers. 

A few other general accounts may be mentioned. 
G. M. Trevelyan, England under the Stuarts (Lon- 
don, 1904) is a brilliantly written book, giving an 
extremely effective picture of seventeenth-century 
England, religious, social, and political. Lord Mor- 
ley, Oliver Cromwell (New York, 1900) is as much 
an intellectual study of Cromwell and his contem- 
poraries as a biography. Its judgments of Lilburne 
and the Levellers are severe. David Masson, Life 
oj John Milton (yvols., London, 1 859-1 894), does on 
a larger scale for Milton whatMorley does for Crom- 
well. F. A. Inderwick, The Interregnum (London, 
1 891) is a series of historical sketches. On second 
hand authority, the author bestows his scorn on 
Lilburne in unusual measure. William Godwin, 
History of the Commonwealth of England (4 vols., 
London, 1824-1828) is written from the republican 
viewpoint and reveals a marked animus against 
Lilburne in his later career. The chapters of Eng- 
lish history in the Cambridge Modern History, vol. 
IV, are excellent. Chapters viii and ix are by Mr. 
G. W. Prothero, chapters x and xi by Prothero 
and Colonel Lloyd, chapters xii and xiii by Mr. 
W. A. Shaw, and chapter xix by Professor C. H. 
Firth. F. C, Montague's volume in the Political 
History of England, The History of England from the 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 369 

Accession of James I to the Restoration, 1603-1660 
(London, 1907), is a solid account. Professor 
Charles H. Firth's The Last Years of the Protec- 
torate, 1656-1658 (2 vols., London, 1909) is a model 
of political history. 

BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIAL 

Masson and Lord Morley have already been 
mentioned. Thomas Carlyle, Letters and Speeches 
of Oliver Cromwell (best edition that of Mrs. E. C. 
Lomas, 3 vols., London, 1904) is half a biography, 
half a collection of letters and speeches. There 
are several lives of Lilbume. The Biographia Bri- 
tannica (vol. V, 2937-61, London, 1 747-1 766) 
contains an excellent one, only marred by the 
author's allowing The Self-Afflicter lively Described, 
a wretched little tract of 1657, to mislead him in 
his account of the last years of Lilbume's career. 
The 1813-1820 edition of Anthony Wood's Athenae 
Oxonienses contains a life of Lilburne that falls into 
the same error as the Biographia Britannica. In 
general. Wood's compilation affords a few scattered 
bits of serviceable biography, and many statements 
as to authorship of contemporary pamphlets. In 
the case of books by or concerning the Levellers its 
statements are often unreliable. Godwin's Com- 
monwealth follows Lilbume's career with minuteness. 
A. Bisset, in Omitted Chapters of the History of Eng- 
land (2 vols., London, 1864, 1867) and History of the 
Struggle for Parliamentary Government in England 
(2 vols., London, 1877), is warmly sympathetic to 
Lilbume; both books suffer from the slightness of 



370 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

the materials Bisset used. Professor Firth's life of 
Lilburne in the Dictionary of National Biography 
(XXXIII, 243 ff.) is excellent, although the policy 
of the work limited the author to a narration of 
facts. Eduard Bernstein, Sozialismus und Demo- 
kratie in der grossen englischen Revolution (2ded., 
Stuttgart, 1908) interprets Lilbume's life in much 
the same way as my essay. Bernstein wrote from 
notes collected by another person for a different 
purpose; thus he falls into such errors as dating 
Lilburne's marriage in 1646. William Dugdale, 
History of Imbanking and Drayning (London, 1662) 
affords some chance information of value on a 
critical transaction in Lilbume's career. 

The Dictionary of National Biography contains 
lives of several other men who appear in the narra- 
tive. Those by Professor Firth are without excep- 
tion excellent. Among these may be named: John 
Wildman (LXI, 232), Richard Overton (XIII, 387), 
Henry Marten (XXXVI, 263), Sir Arthur Haselrig 
(XXVI, 292), Rainsborough (XLVII, 172), Henry 
Ireton (XXIX, 37), William Prynne (XLVI, 432), 
William Walwyn (LIX, 284). Among lives by 
other authors Alexander Gordon's life of John Good- 
win (XXIII, 146) is good; W. A. S. Hewins's 
Henry Parker (XLV, 340) is disappointing; D. S. 
Thomas's David Jenkins (XXIX, 298) is well sup- 
plemented by a chapter in Isaac Disraeli's Com- 
mentaries on the Life and Reign of Charles the First 
(2 vols., London, 1851). 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 371 

MATERIAL FOR THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY 

Canon H. H. Henson, Studies in English Religion 
in the Seventeenth Century (London, 1903) is a series 
of studies in the main channels of religious thought. 
Hermann Weingarten, Die Revolutionskirchen Eng- 
lands. Ein Beitrag zur inneren Geschichte der eng- 
lischen Kirche und der Reformation (Leipzig, 1868), 
studies the intellectual and spiritual aspects of 
religion during the Civil War with special attention 
to the sects. R. Barclay, The Inner Life of the 
Religious Societies of the Commonwealth (London, 
1878), attempts a similar treatment. 

Modern religious or denominational histories 
usually follow closely certain well-defined conven- 
tions in their selection and treatment of topics; 
generally they do not consider the subject matter of 
chapter 11 at all. The following may be mentioned : 
R. W. Dale, History of English Congregationalism 
(London, 1907), J. Stoughton, History of Religion 
in England (6 vols., London, 1881), H. W. Clark, 
History of English Nonconformity (London, 19 11- 

1913)- 

Of the older controversial works, Daniel Neal, 
History of the Puritans (ist ed., 4 vols., 1 732-1 738, 
enlarged ed., 3 vols., London, 1837) is valuable as 
representing a large mass of digested source material. 
B. Hanbury, Historical Memorials relating to the 
Independents or Congregationalists (3 vols., London, 
1 839-1 844), describes the Presbyterian-Independent 
controversy with a strong Independent bias. W. 
M. Hetherington, History of the Westminster A ssem- 



372 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

hly of Divines (Edinburgh, 1843) is a biased Presby- 
terian account, but more inclined than Hanbury 
to be judicial. In this connection, one may note 
two discussions in the English Historical Review on 
the contents and authorship of a tract for liberty of 
conscience: S. R. Gardiner, vol. I, 144; Professor 
C. H. Firth, vol. X, 715. Dr. Wallace St. John, 
The Contest for Liberty of Conscience in England 
(Chicago, 1900), may be mentioned here. 

DEMOCRATIC THEORIES 

Bernstein's Sozialismus und Demokratie, already 
mentioned, emphasizes the democratic aspects of 
the Leveller movement. However, the author 
writes as an avowed Socialist, and over-emphasizes 
scattered manifestations of communistic sentiment; 
indeed he distorts his account of the Leveller move- 
ment to make it serve as a mere prelude to commu- 
nism. As a result, his handling of Leveller politics 
is unsatisfactory. L. H, Berens, The Digger move- 
ment in the days of the Commonwealth, as revealed in 
the writings of GerrardWinstanley, the Digger, mystic, 
and rationalist, communist and social reformer (Lon- 
don, 1906) is a monograph whose title indicates its 
nature. The treatment is so full that it has seemed 
unnecessary to consider the Diggers in the present 
work. G. P. Gooch, History of English Demo- 
cratic Ideas in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, 
1898) is based on wide information. It represents 
all that scholarship can do with broad fields of 
thought in the absence of monograph material. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 373 

The only fault is that the scope of the work necessi- 
tated a sketchy treatment, and did not allow a 
thorough comparison of the materials used. As a 
result the author does not always hit off the exact 
differences between the various political theories 
he describes. G. L. Scherger, The Evolution of 
Modern Liberty (New York, 1904) has the same 
fault in an accentuated degree. When an author 
allots a single chapter to Independents, Levellers 
and Whigs, he is attempting the impossible. Scher- 
ger's treatment of Leveller ideas is distinctly weak. 
Among still more comprehensive accounts, T. E. 
May, Democracy in Europe (2 vols., London, 1877), 
and W. A. Dunning, A History of Political Theories 
from Luther to Montesquieu (New York, 1905) are 
both excellent for the period in question. C. Bor- 
geaud. The Rise of Modern Democracy in Old and 
New England (trans, by Mrs. Hill, London, 1894) 
traces the democratic and constitutional outgrowths 
of the idea of church covenant, possibly laying too 
great stress on the analogy between covenant and 
written constitution. Professor Firth's introduc- 
tion to volume I of the Clarke Papers {infra, p. 379) 
is an excellent summary of the constitutional debates 
of 1647. 

CONSTITUTIONAL DISCUSSIONS 

The standard constitutional works, such as D. J. 
Medley, A Students' Manual of English Constitu- 
tional History (4th ed., Oxford, 1907), are ofnogreat 
assistance. T. P. Taswell-Langmead, English Con- 



374 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

stitutional History from the Teutonic Conquest to the 
Present Time (6th ed., London, 1905) dismisses the 
eighteen years from the Militia Bill to the Restora- 
tion in five pages. Indeed, the average constitu- 
tional historian regards the period as an interim of 
confusion in the midst of an orderly constitutional 
development. Of course there are notable excep- 
tions. F. W. Maitland in his Constitutional His- 
tory of England (Cambridge, 1908) brought the 
wonderful insight that distinguished this author in 
the medieval field to bear on the later periods of 
English history. Gardiner's passing constitutional 
discussions show insight into the problems of the 
Stuart period, although he sees his way less clearly 
after 1642. An excellent short study by Gardi- 
ner is the introduction to his Constitutional Doc- 
uments of the Puritan Revolution (3d ed., Oxford, 
1906). 

Several of the writers named above realize the 
significance of the question between sovereignty of 
Parliament and supremacy of law before 1 642 . But 
it has been left for an American scholar, Professor 
C. H. Mcllwain, to grasp the significance of the 
contest between the two principles in the broader 
reaches of English history. In The High Court of 
Parliament and Its Supremacy (New Haven, 191 o), 
Professor Mcllwain has established a principle of 
interpretation of which any future constitutional 
historian must take careful note. W. Rothschild, 
Der Gedanke der geschriehenen Verfassung in der 
englischen Revolution (Tubingen, 1903), as its title 
might indicate, is a study of written constitutions 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 375 

with the emphasis on the word "written." For a 
criticism of Rothschild's method, supra, page 193. 
Borgeaud's may also be mentioned among con- 
stitutional studies. 

MISCELLANEOUS 

A few books used or cited can best be grouped 
under the head of miscellaneous. The use made 
of them is sufficiently indicated by the titles: J.N. 
Figgis, The Theory of the Divine Right of Kings 
(Cambridge, 1896), H. A. Glass, The Barbone Par- 
liament (London, 1899), C. H. Firth, Cromwell's 
Army (London, 1902), and The House of Lords 
during the Civil War (London, 19 10), Miss Louise 
Brown, The Political Activities of the Baptists and 
Fifth Monarchy Men in England during the Inter- 
regnum (Washington, 1912). 

Source Material 
official records and collections of state 

PAPERS 

The most important official records are the Jour- 
nals oi the Lords and Commons {Lords, vols. III-X; 
Commons, vols. I-VI). The Lords' Journals were 
kept more fully than the Commons' ; and ordinances, 
resolutions, reports, etc. are more apt to be entered 
in them at length. Edward Husband, An Exact 
Collection of All Remonstrances, Debates, Votes and 
remarkable Passages between the King's most excellent 
Majesty and his High Court of Parliament (1643) 



376 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

is what its title indicates. It gives in full the decla- 
rations exchanged between king and Parliament to 
November, 1642. Husband's Collection of all the 
publike Orders, Ordinances and Declarations of both 
Houses of Parliament (1646) is narrower in scope 
than his earlier work, being confined to enactments 
rather than state papers. H. Scobell, Collection of 
Acts and Ordinances of General Use made in the 
Parliament (1658) is a similar work. C. H. Firth 
and R. S. Rait have published a modern edition of 
ordinances, in Acts and Ordinances of the Inter reg- 
num, j(549-j<5<5o (3 vols., London, 191 1). JohnRush- 
worth. Historical Collections (1721 ed., 8 vols.) is a 
collection of state papers to 1649, connected by a 
kind of diurnal that usually is a mere summary of 
news and comment from current news-letters. At 
times it is difhcult to tell when Rushworth is quot- 
ing a document and when abstracting it. His notes 
of the trial of the Earl of Strafford are the most 
precious part of the work. John Nalson, An Im- 
partial Collection of the Great Affairs of State (2 vols., 
1683) is a similar work, if anything more valuable 
than Rushworth, although it extends only to 1642. 
For its preparation Nalson was given access to many 
state papers. The so-called Cobbett's Parliamentary 
History of England (vols. H and HI, 1806 et seq.) 
for this period is mainly a condensation of The 
Parliamentary or Constitutional History (usually 
cited as Old Parliamentary History, 24 vols., to 
1660 complete, 1751-1766). The last-named work 
is a compilation of the Journals, with speeches 
printed in contemporary pamphlets, and various 
scraps of information. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 377 

CONTEMPORARY MEMOIRS, ETC. 

Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, though 
admittedly the historical classic of the period, is of 
little use for the purposes of this study. Clarendon 
never came into personal contact with any of the 
Levellers, and his accounts of them simply reflect 
the biased and inaccurate sources of his infor- 
mation and the defects of his memory, To the Life 
(Oxford, 1842) we are indebted for Clarendon's 
account of his habit of forging pamphlets. In the 
English Historical Review, XVI, 26, 246, 464, is an 
exhaustive criticism by Professor Firth on the rela- 
tion of the various drafts of the History and the 
Life, the time of their composition, and their rela- 
tive reliability. The Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson 
(best edition, C. H. Firth, London, 1885) contain 
one or two vague references to the Levellers. The 
Memoirs of Edmund Ludlow (2 vols., C. H. Firth, 
ed., Oxford, 1894) have little more; they serve as a 
criterion of distinction between the republican and 
Leveller types of thought. The Memoirs of Sir 
John Berkeley (Maseres, Select Tracts, 2 vols., Lon- 
don, 18 1 5) give an excellent, straightforward ac- 
count of the negotiations of the army leaders with 
the king in 1647. The Memoirs of Denzil Lord Holies 
from 1641-1648 (London, 1699) were apparently com- 
pleted early in 1648, and accordingly are colored 
by violent partisan animosity. In the present work 
they are of importance because of Godwin's mis- 
application of one passage in them. John Selden, 
Table Talk (most convenient edition, E. Arber, 



378 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

London, 1868), gives the mental outlook on the 
great rebellion of a man inclined to hold aloof from 
the world of action. The Table Talk is a series of 
pungent criticisms of the theories, arguments, and 
actions of all parties alike. It has suffered from 
the topical arrangement adopted. Again and again 
Selden's sayings so manifestly refer to current 
events, that one is tempted to name the month in 
which they were uttered. Like Rushworth, Bul- 
strode Whitelocke, Memorials of the English Affairs 
(4 vols., Oxford, 1853) is in great part made up of 
newspaper comments and news; the Memorials are 
interspersed with brief remarks and a few longer 
reminiscences by WTiitelocke. Clement Walker, 
Compleat History of Independency (London, 1661) 
summarizes a series of the author's pamphlet as- 
saults on the Independents in earlier years. John 
Milton's pamphlets have been quoted from his 
Prose Works (1839). Those used are: Of Reforma- 
tion in England (1641) ; Of Reformation in England, 
the second book; The Reason of Church Government 
Urged Against Prelacy, 1641 ; Animadversions upon 
the Remonstrants' Defence against Smectymnuus, 
16^1 ; An Apology for Smectymnuus, 1642 ; Areopag- 
itica ; A Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Print- 
ing, 1644; The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates 
{i6^8-i6/^g) ; Eikonoklastes, 16^^', Defensio Pro Pop- 
ulo Anglicano, 1651; Defensio Secunda Pro Populo 
Anglicano. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 379 

PRINTED OR CALENDARED MANUSCRIPTS 

The most Important printed manuscripts for the 
subject of this essay are the debates in the Council of 
the Army and the Council of War in 1647 and 1648, 
reported in the Clarke Papers, edited by Professor 
C. H. Firth (Catnden Society Publications, vols. I and 
II, 1891-1894). The Clarke Papers printed are short- 
hand notes of debates that turned on questions of 
political theory ; the very crudeness with which they 
have been transcribed from the short-hand assures 
the student that he is dealing with a source that 
has not been retouched. John Lightfoot's notes of 
debates in the Assembly of Divines {Works, 13 vols., 
1 822-1 825, vol. XI 1 1) are valuable for an understand- 
ing of the ecclesiastical controversy. So also is The 
Letters and Journals of Robert Baillie (3 vols., Edin- 
burgh, 1 841-1842). A few printed or calendared 
manuscripts throw light on Lilbume's dealings with 
the Royalists. Among them are : The Calendar of 
the Clarendon State Papers in the Bodleian Library, 
Oxford (W. Ogle, W. H. Bliss, W. D. Macray, 3 
vols., Oxford, 1872-1876), The Nicholas Papers (ed. 
G. F. Warner, Camden Society Publications, vols. I, 
II, 1 886-1 892), and the Collection of the State Papers 
of John Thurloe (Thomas Birch, 7 vols., 1742). 
The confession of Major Thomas Scot, the Com- 
monwealth's "master of intelligence" (printed in 
the English Historical Review, XII, 16), corrobo- 
rates several of Lilburne's assertions regarding 
Hugh Riley and Wendy Oxford, the government's 
spies. The Diary of Thomas Burton (4 vols., Lon- 



380 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

don, 1828) is a report of debates in the Protectorate 
and Interregnum Parliaments ascribed to Thomas 
Burton; it furnishes us with the debate in 1659 on 
the reversal of the Rump's sentence against Lil- 
bume. Little assistance is afforded by the Calendar 
of State Papers, except that the Calendar of the 
Committee for Compounding (5 vols. ,1889-1892) con- 
tains papers relating to the Harraton colliery case. 
There are chance bits of information scattered 
through the Reports of the Historical Manuscripts 
Commission; The Fourth and Fifth Reports (1874 and 
1876), and the Portland Mss. (13th Report, App. I., 
1 891) are cited above. The Loder-Symonds Mss. 
(13th App. 4, 1892) contain a few of Henry Marten's 
papers. In general it may be said that the manu- 
script sources so far unearthe and calendared add 
very little to our knowledge of the essential facts of 
the Leveller movement. 

CONTEMPORARY PAMPHLETS 

The main reliance in this essay has been on pam- 
phlet material. The reasons for relying on it have 
been briefly indicated in the Introduction. It is 
contemporary, and as the pamphlets naturally link 
themselves into long chains of controversial answer, 
reply, and retort, one very often can obtain in it 
two or three different partisan points of view. The 
vast mass of the literature in itself is a protection. 
The Thomason collection is incomplete ; many pam- 
phlets mentioned by contemporaries have utterly 
disappeared, and others not in the collection survive 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 381 

in but a single example ; yet the Thomason collection 
contains over twenty thousand pieces. For present 
purposes it is believed that a sufficient number of 
pamphlets have been examined to ensure a reason- 
ably broad view of contemporary religious and 
political discussion. 

The user of this material must continually be on 
his guard against forgeries. John Forster was de- 
ceived by a series of speeches concocted for the five 
members on the occasion of the king's attempt to 
arrest them (Gardiner, X, 133). Mr. Gooch has 
erred in regarding the death-bed declaration of 
Alexander Henderson as a genuine document; it 
was really a Royalist forgery of 1648, as both inter- 
nal and external evidence indicate (Gooch, p. 171; 
Neal, III, 558). In the Somers Tracts (VI, 577) 
is printed a pamphlet containing speeches by the 
Earl of Pembroke and Lord Brooke; the editor holds 
the speeches up to ridicule as typical examples of the 
oratorical extravagances of the parliamentary lead- 
ers. He is aware that Clarendon in his Life (p. 954) 
admitted concocting the speeches for his own amuse- 
ment, but a burlesque vote of thanks that Clarendon 
appended to Brooke's speech transcends the editor's 
sense of humor, and induces him to pronounce the 
work genuine. Clarendon repeatedly forged such 
speeches or letters. It may be that some of the 
speeches quoted in Chapter i above are not authen- 
tic; but so long as they are not satires, they reflect, 
if not the ideas of the imputed speaker, at least the 
ideas that were generally current among men. 
Accordingly they are of service for the use to which 
they have been put. 



382 THE LEVELLER MOVEMENT 

There are a number of reprinted collections of 
this literature. Two may be named : The Harleian 
Miscellany (vols. IV-VI, 1808-1811) and the Somers 
Tracts {A Collection of Scarce and Valuable Tracts, 
2d ed., Walter Scott, editor, London, 1809-18 15, vols. 
III-VII). In addition to these reprints, several 
works are based more or less frankly on the tract 
literature, such as Hanbury, and Howell, Complete 
Collection of State Trials (1809, vols. III-V). More- 
over, every one of the standard compilations, such 
as Rush worth, Nalson, Whitelocke, the Parlia- 
mentary Histories, owes very much more to contem- 
porary pamphlets than might at first be supposed. 

A brief description of the material may be at- 
tempted. The tracts proper include everything 
from the broadside, petition, or ordinance, or the 
four-page squib, to the weighty theological or polit- 
ical tract running to four hundred pages. For the 
majority of these we are able to assign the approxi- 
mate dates of publication, partly by Thomason's 
notations of dates, partly from imprimaturs. The 
literature supposedly passed through the hands of 
licensers before being printed, but from 1645 to 
1653 unlicensed books issued in streams from illicit 
presses, and voiced the most outspoken criticisms 
of the ruling powers. The newspapers were even 
more difficult to censor than the tracts. The weekly 
news-letter, issued under a permanent title, was 
supplemented by "extras" containing fresh news, 
with head-lines as deceptive as those of the extras 
put forth by the yellow press today. Extensive 
citations have been made for various dates from 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 383 

the following journals. In each case the approxi- 
mate dates of publication are given. The Moderate 
(Leveller, June 22, 1648-Sept. 25, 1649) ; Mercurius 
Pragmaticus (Royalist, Sept. 14, 1647-May 28, 
1650, edited by Marchamont Nedham); after 1650 
Nedham edited the Commonwealth Mercurius Pol- 
iticus (June 6, 1650-June 7, 1660); Mercurius 
Elencticus (Royalist, Oct. 29, 1647-June 3, 1650); 
The Man in the Moone (Royalist, April 16, 1649-June 
5, 1650). These papers are most often cited above. 
A few others are cited occasionally, but these need 
not be listed here. Newspapers of the time were 
at best ephemeral, and sprang ap, decayed, and 
changed their titles so frequently that a complete 
bibliography would carry us far afield. 



INDEX 

Note. The reader will find uader the title "Newspapsis" all important references 
to Journals used; under "Pamphlets" there is a list, arranged alphabetically by titles, 
of all the important pamphlets cited or commented upon in this essay. 



Agreement of the People, analogy 
between, and system of Inde- 
pendents, 83; theory of, 200, 
362; Cromwell's and Ireton's 
attitude toward, 212; advo- 
cated in An Out Cry, 288; would 
have abrogated English title to 
Ireland, 300; Leveller ideals in, 
308, 310-311, 346; necessity of 
new king accepting, 312; dec- 
laration of the will of a sover- 
eign people, 321-322; designed 
to establish democratic form of 
government, 359; First (1647): 
genesis of, 171, 199 ff., 253, 358; 
cause of, 200 fif.; Lilburne's 
influence on name and idea of, 
205; nature of, 207-215, 218; 
provisions of, 207 ff.; Wild- 
man's defense of, 212-213; de- 
bate on in Army Council, 215 
ff.; outcome of, 224-225; peti- 
tion for release of men con- 
cerned with, 229; Thompson's 
connection with, 231 n; signa- 
tures secured for, 233; attempt 
to limit Parliament by law 
stated by the people, 346; 
Second (1648): plans for a, 234; 
Levellers advocate, 258, 260, 
275; Ireton proposes, 261 ff.; 
Lilburne's suggestions for com- 
mittee to frame, 263; drafting 
of, 264; Levellers withdrew 
from committee of, 264; general 
attitude toward, 265-266; pro- 
visions of, 267 ff.; marked 
advance in political thought of 
Levellers, 269-270; Third (1649) : 
clanger of establishment of by 
mutineers, 285; demanded by 



Derbyshire miners, 289; Level- 
lers evolve, 301 ; Levellers prom- 
ise, 316; provisions of, 317 ff.; 
mentioned, 93, 229, 230, 233, 
241-242, 250, 255, 271, 275, 289, 
310,311,313,326,346. 

Allen, William, 186 n. 

Anabaptists, 98, 99, 233, 247, 257, 
286. 

Antinomians, 98, 99, 247. 

Arminians, 257. 

Arnold, Richard, charges against 
Walwyn, 243 n. 

Arnald, Richard, shot for mutiny, 
225; mentioned, 229. 

Assembly of Divines, purpose of 
caUing, 50; New England min- 
isters invited to, 97; discussion 
of growth of churches on In- 
dependent model, 98; contro- 
versy in, 51 ff, 68, 76 ff., 100- 
101; Lilburne accused, 101; Par- 
liament petitioned to dissolve, 
102-103. 

Ayres, William, 225, 295, 297. 

Baillie, Robert, Scotch com- 
missioner at Westminster 
Assembly, 51 n; opinion on 
Independents, 54 n, 99; on Pres- 
byterianism, 79; on influence of 
Manchester's army on Scotch 
army, 98; on New Model Army, 
166; mentioned, 61, 65 n. 

Barkstead, John, 87. 

Barrow, Henry, 343. 

Bartlet, John, 334 n. 

Barwis, Richard, charges against, 
131. 

Bastwick, John, taunted Inde- 
pendents on exclusiveness, 84; 



385 



386 



INDEX 



acquaintance with Lilburne, 88; 
opinion of Lilburne, 98 n, 103, 
107-108; Lilburne wrote letter 
against, 103 n; informed Parlia- 
ment against Lilburne, 104; 
reason for persecuting Lilburne, 
105; Lilburne's opinion of ac- 
tion, 106 n. 

Bellam}', John, opinion on danger 
of Independents' principles, 123- 
124; fixed radical doctrine on 
Independents, 124-125. 

Berkeley, Sir John, 232 n. 

Berkeley, Robert,opinion on rule 
of law and of government, 8. 

Berkenhead, see Birkenhead. 

Berkshire, Leveller activity in, 
274, 361; mentioned, 275 n. 

Birkenhead, Isaac, 334 n. 

Brav, Robert, arrested for mutiny, 
225. 

Brentford, Lilburne commanded 
at defense of, 94. 

Bridge, William, one of five Hol- 
land ministers, 52 n; opinion of 
authority of presbytery, 59 n. 

Brook, Robert, author of Charity 
oi Churchmen, 244 n; mentioned, 
248 n, 255; opinion of Walwvn, 
252, 256. 

Brooke, Lord, ascribed juridical 
power to bishops and judges, 45; 
author of Discourse Opening The 
Nature Of That Episcopacie, 
45, 67 n, 69 n; opinion on divine 
right of episcopacy, 67; Lil- 
burne enlisted in regiment of, 
94. 

Browne, Robert, separatist, de- 
vised a democratic church 
order, 52; influence compared 
with Lilburne's, 356. 

Browne, William, imprisoned by 
House of Commons, 161. 

Brownists, 53, 256, 257. 

Buckingham, Duke of, Lilburne's 
connection with, 333-334. 

Buckinghamshire, petitions from, 
172; Leveller petition circu- 
lated in, 234; Levellers numer- 
ous in, 361. 



Bunyan, John, 100 n. 

Burford, Fairfax surprised muti- 
neers at, 281 ff. 

Burnet, Henrj', charges against 
WalwjTi, 243 n. 

Burroughs, Jeremiah, one of five 
Holland ministers, 52 n. 

Burton, Henry, author of Protesta- 
tion Protested, 69; interpretation 
of the Protestation. 69 ff.; 
Edwards attacks position of, 71; 
mentioned, 75; read by Lilburne, 
87 n; Baillie's opinion of, 99. 

Calvin, John, 60, 87 n. 

Calvinists, 51, 84, 85. 

Cambridge, Leveller petition sent 
to, 234. 

Capel, Lord, trial of, illegal, 272, 
273; mentioned, 276, 277, 299; 
Lilburne's adN^ce to, 310 n. 

Charles I, opinion on di\'ine right, 
8-9; Long Parliament's attitude 
toward prerogative of, 10-11; 
refused assent to Militia Ordi- 
nance, 20; replies to Grand 
Remonstrance, 38-39; opinion 
on New Model Army, 166; 
prisoner, 166; terms of Heads of 
the Proposals not accepted by, 
171; escape of, 177, 178; Lil- 
burne's attitude toward, 181 flF.; 
Leveller alleged plots for assassi- 
nation of, 189 ff.; attitude 
toward High Court of Justice, 
273; Fifth Monarchy interpre- 
tation of execution of, 306; 
Levellers' objections to, 312. 

Charles II, 285, 354; Levellers' 
attitude toward, 312. 

Chidley, Samuel, one of Levellers 
imprisoned, 230 n; mentioned, 
361. 

Chillenden, Edmund, 89 n; author 
of Inhumanity oi Kings Prison- 
Keeper, 94 n; Lilburne assisted, 
96 n. 

City Remonstrance, reception 
of by Independents, 122 ff.; 
significance of contest over, 148; 
mentioned, 180 n. 



INDEX 



387 



Coachman, Robert, author of Cry 
Of A Stone, 85; opinion of spirit- 
ual deadness of parish assem- 
blies, 85. 

Coke, Sir Edward, belief in su- 
premacy of common law, 61; 
Lilburne's use of doctrines of, 
238 n, 239, 342; Lilburne quotes 
as authority in 1653, 338. 

Coke, Thomas, accuses Levellers 
of correspondence with Royal- 
ists, 331 n. 

Coleman, Thomas, belief in state 
control of church, 60; author of 
Hopes Deferred and Dashed, 77 n ; 
stated Erastian position and 
answered by Gillespie, 77. 

Colepeper, Lord, Lilburne's con- 
nection with, 334. 

Communism, Ireton's view of, 222; 
Walwyn and, 255-256; Levellers 
charged with, 315. 

Cook, John, author of Vindication 
OJ The Professors br Profession 
Of The Law, 155; states defects 
in law of seventeenth century, 
155. 

Corkbush Field, 225, 232 n, 254. 

Cornwall, Peters influence in, 
103 n; attempts a separate 
peace, 135 n. 

Cotton, John, Independency not 
democracy, 52; opinion of New 
England church government, 
53 n; author of Keyes of the 
Kingdom of Heaven, 53 n; Way 
of the Churches Cleared, 53 n; 
Way of the Churches in Ne'du 
England, 58 n; necessity of his 
re-ordination in New England, 
59; alleged democracy of, 85; 
mentioned, 54 n, 82. 

Council of State, provision for, in 
second Agreement of the Peo- 
ple, 267; Lilburne demands 
abolition of, 274; Levellers im- 
prisoned by orders of, 276; 
erection of, as executive of 
government, 302; mentioned, 
278, 299, 308, 317, 327, iZZ, 335, 
340. 

Cowling, Nicholas, 228. 



Cranford, James, 104. 

Crawley, Justice, 45. 

Crewe, John, 104. 

Cromwell, Oliver, supported by 
Lilburne, 95, 96 n, 2.59, 327; 
profjosed committee where any 
one might inform against Par- 
liament, 111; Lilburne's re- 
lations with, 171 fl.; radicals' 
distrust of, 176, 201; Lilburne's 
attitude toward, 177, 293 n; 
urged by Lilburne to keep 
understanding with king, 182; 
marched on London, 186 n; 
alleged plots of Levellers against, 
189, 190-191; policy frustrated 
(1647j, 200; attitude toward 
Agreement of the People, 211 flF., 
224-225; comparison between 
Levellers and, 216 fl., 236-237, 
Thompson arrested by orders 
of, 231 n; suppressed mutineers 
at Burford, 281-282; soldiers 
reprieved by (1649), 282; criti- 
cism of measures against muti- 
neers, 282 ff.; Levellers' at- 
titude toward, 308, 340 n; 
influence in banishing Lilburne, 
331; Royalists believed Lil- 
burne intended to murder, 334 n ; 
Lilburne's contradictory opin- 
ions of, 335; held Lilburne 
prisoner, 348, 353; installed 
Lord Protector, 348, 349; idea 
of fundamental law, 351; men- 
tioned, 134, 167, 188, 190, 232 n, 
254, 279. 

Crosseraan, John, petition of, 
230. 

Crow, Sir Sackville, Levellers 
supposed to have correspond- 
ence with, 331 n. 

Cumberland, charges made by 
men of, against Banvis, 131. 

Davenport, John, invited to 
Assembly of Divines, 97. 

Dell, William, 189. 

Denne (or Den), Henry, 281-282, 
285, 300. 

Derbyshire, Leveller uprising in, 
289. 



388 



INDEX 



Bering, Sir Edward, ojiinion on 
Grand Remonstrance, 17. 

Devonshire, action of, 125 n. 

Digby, Lord, 20; HoUes's cor- 
respondence with, 104. 

Divine right. Parliament questions 
king's, 7 fi.; of church govern- 
ment, 9, 51,56, 58, 63, 66, 67 
ff.; bishops sanction king's, 9; 
Fiennes discusses, 46-47 ; of Pres- 
byterianism, 51, 63, 72; Inde- 
pendents' use of, 51, 58, 66, 83; 
Independents and Presbyterians 
discuss, 52 n; of institution of 
episcopacy, 67; Goodwin de- 
clares Independency of, 73-74; 
Prynne's and Goodwin's con- 
troversy over, 76; Erastians and 
Presbyterians struggle over, 
77 ff.; Levellers' conception of, 
137, 149; Royalists' use of, 
303-304; use of by defenders of 
Commonwealth, 306. 

Dover, 332 n. 

Dover Castle, 353. 

Downing, Calybute, author of 
Sermon preached to the Renowned 
Company of the Artillery, 45; 
makes distinction between rule 
of government and rule of law, 
45. 

Duell, Elizabeth, Lilburne mar- 
ried, 92. 

Earle, Walter, Tulidah accused 
by, 160; mentioned, 161. 

Eaton, Samuel, author of Oath 
of Allegiance And The National 
Covenant, 302 n. 

Edgehill, Lilburne fought at, 94. 

Edward the Confessor, laws of, 
133, 145. 

Edwards, Thomas, author of 
Gangraena, 65 n; argued against 
Burton for power of synod, 71; 
accused Prynne of Erastian 
tendencies, 72 n; taunted Inde- 
pendents on exclusi\'eness, 84; 
opinion on growth of Indepen- 
dent churches, 98 n; account of 
Windmill Tavern episode, 102 n; 



opinion of Peters, 103 n; opinion 
of Lilburne's motives, 107 n; 
actions toward Independents, 
121; opinion of New Model 
Army, 164; \\'alwyn's defense 
of toleration against, 250; men- 
tioned, 79, lOln, 251 n. 

Erastians, principles of, 60; eccle- 
siastical controversy with In- 
dependents and Presbyterians 
(1641-1646), 60 ff.; struggle 
with Independents, 72 ff.; 
position of, set forth by Cole- 
man, 77; mentioned, 121, 269. 

Erastus, Thomas, name applied 
to party, 60. 

Erburj', William, attitude toward 
second Agreement of the Peo- 
ple, 266 n. 

Essex, Earl of, 166 n. 

Fairfax, Sir Thomas, Lilburne's 
esteem for, 176; made new pro- 
posal in place of Agreement, 
224; power given to, 230; sup- 
pressed mutineers at Burford, 
281-282; criticism of his meas- 
ures against mutineers, 282 ff.; 
mentioned, 167, 174 n, 186 n, 
191, 202, 254, 279. 

Feak, John, 332 n. 

Feme, Henry, 3i. 

Fiennes, Nathaniel, sets forth 
parliamentary power usurped 
by bishops, 44; sets forth 
Parliament's distrust of ec- 
clesiastical application of law 
of nature, 46-47; mentioned, 154. 

Foster, Henry, charges against 
Walwyn, 243 n. 

Fox, John, 87. 

Fuller, Thomas, author of Sermon 
of Reformation, 69 n. 

Geree, John, author of Vindiciae 
Voti, 70; opinion of Parliament's 
supremacy over church, 70-71. 

Gillespie, George, speaks for 
Presbyterians in refuting Cole- 
man, 77; mentioned, 79. 



INDEX 



389 



Glynn, John, Leveller petition 
sent to, 159 n. 

Godwin, William, "discovered" 
plot to kill Cromwell, 191; 
mentioned, Hi n. 

Goffe, William, 217. 

Goodwin, John, Independent, 52 n ; 
author of Innocency and Truth 
Triumphing, 58 n; argumen*' of, 
for liberty of conscience, 65-66; 
author of Innocencies Triumph, 
65 n; author of M. S. To A. S. 
With a Plea for Libertie of 
Conscience, 65 n; author of 
Theomachia, 66 n; author of 
Certain briefe Observations and 
Antiquaeries: On Master Prins 
Twelve Questions, 73 n; author of 
Calumny Arraign'd And Cast, 
73 n; advocates divine right of 
Independency, 73-74; attacks 
Prynne's use of law of nature, 
74; Anti-Cavalierisme quoted, 
82; expresses in Anti-Cavalier- 
isme typical spirit of men in 
Civil War, 93; Baillie's opinion 
of, 99; Lilburne complains of 
congregation of, 172; dislike for 
Walwyn, 245; mentioned, 76, 
146, 177, 251 n, 269. 

Goodwin, Thomas, one of five 
Holland ministers, 52 n; opin- 
ion on authority of presbytery, 
58 n; opinion on ordination, 59 n. 

Government, Parliament's sover- 
eignty in, 7 ff.; distinction be- 
tween rule of law and rule of, 
8-9, 45 ff.; share of people in, 
11,29, 36 ff., 40, 110-111, 117, 
120, 139, 144, 150 ff., 181 ff., 
193, 205, 218-219, 315; Par- 
liament's sovereignty based on 
compact theory of origin, 
13 ff., 42-13, 182; Parliament 
accepts law of saliis populi, 18 
ff., 38; sovereignty of, based on 
law of nature, 23 ff.; Parker's 
opinions respecting, 23 ff., 31; 
various comments on compact 
theory of origin, 30 ff.; Royal- 
ists' attitude toward, 39 ff.. 



42-43; supremacy of principle 
of salus populi, 45-46, 124; 
comparison of Independent and 
Presbyterian ecclesiastical, 51 
ff., 62; supremacy of Parlia- 
ment over church in matters of, 
68-69; of Independents' system, 
71; Independents' ideas, 82, 84; 
Cotton's and Williams's doc- 
trine of democracy in, 85; Lil- 
burne's opinions, 114, 115; 
Levellers' belief in compact 
theory of origin, 120, 137, 139 
ff., 358; dissatisfaction with, 
in pamphlets of 1645, 132; 
Levellers advocate local auton- 
omy in, 134-135; conquest 
theory of origin set forth in 
Regall Tyrannie, 144 ff.; Level- 
lers advocated democracy in, 
146 ff., 229, 236-237, 359 ff.; 
compact theory of origin advo- 
cated in Remonstrance of Many 
Thousand Citizens, 146 ff.; 
conquest theory of origin, laws 
a badge of conquest, 155; theo- 
ries of, in 1647, 179 ff.; Level- 
lers advocated limitation of, 
by law, 194, 197 ff., 311, 326, 
346, 363; Levellers' use of 
conquest theory of origin, 216, 
218; first Agreement and democ- 
racy in, 218 ff.; Ireton's 
conception of, 219 ff.; sepa- 
ration of powers of, 238 ff., 352; 
second Agreement sets forth, 
265 ff.; founding and legality 
of Commonwealth, 278-279, 
301 ff.; Lilburne refers to 
conquest theory of origin, 296; 
principle of salus populi used by 
Commonwealth, 302-303; com- 
pact theory of origin used by 
Commonwealth, 303-304; con- 
quest theory of origin men- 
tioned, 312; third Agreement 
sets forth, 316 ff.; democracy 
in third Agreement, 322; Lil- 
burne proved fundamental law 
greater than, 340 ff.; Pro- 
tectorate's justification of, 348- 



390 



INDEX 



349; Levellers place law before, 
352-353; supremacy of in 1660, 
364. See Law. 

Grand Remonstrance (1641), sig- 
nificance of, in House of Com- 
mons, 16; Royalists attitude 
toward, 16-17, 38-39; Bering's 
opinion of, 17; beginning of 
Parliament's claim to sover- 
eignty, 18; Charles I's reply to, 
38-39. 

Great Charter. See Magna Charta. 

Great Civil War, 23, 60, 93, 146, 
151, 167, 177, 242, 364; impor- 
tance of radicals in, 152; con- 
nection of Levellers with, 356. 

Greenwood, John, 343. 

Grey, George, involved in dispute 
with Haselrig, 328-329. 

Grimston, Sir Harbottle, speech 
of, 17; designates Parliament a 
court, 43; opinion in ship 
money case, 44. 

Haberdashers Hall, decision of 
committee of, in Harraton colli- 
ery dispute, 329 n; committee of, 
347. 

Hacker, Francis, in Harraton 
colliery dispute, 329. 

Hadley, Catherine, 92 n. 

Hall, Bishop, opinion regarding 
supremacy of Parliament over 
church, 71; author of Siirvay 
Of That Foolish, Seditious, 
Scandalous, Prophane Libell, 
The Protestation Protested, 71 n. 

Hamilton, Duke of, trial illegal, 
272, 273. 

Hammersmith, 94. 

Hampden, John, 16. 

Hampshire, Leveller activity in, 
274, 361. 

Harraton, dispute over colliery in, 
328, 331, 339-340. 

Harrison, Thomas, attempted to 
conciliate Lilburne, 263; men- 
tioned, 267, 281, 307. 

Haselrig, Sir Arthur, Lilburne's 
hatred for, 288; Lilburne's 
dispute with over colliery, 328- 



329; Mrs. Lilburne attempts to 
secure Lilburne's recall from, 
335; connection with Lilburne's 
sentence, 347; mentioned, 332. 

Hawkins, Captain, imprisoned 
by House of Commons, 105; 
member of party about Lil- 
burne, 107. 

Heads of the Proposals, 171, 203; 
reforms advocated by, 184 n; 
226-227; instability of, 194, 
200; drawn up by Ireton, 194 n. 

Henson, Canon, 60 n. 

Herle, Charles, author of Fuller 
Answer To A Treatise Written 
by Doctor Feme, 32 n; and 
Independency on Scripture of 
the Independency of Churches, 
55 n. 

Hertfordshire, petitions from, 172; 
Leveller petition sent to, 234; 
Leveller activity in, 274, 361. 

High Court of Justice, Lilburne 
attacked legality of, 271 ff., 
276; erection of, 302, 305; men- 
tioned, 308, 310 n, 327 n. 

Hobson, Paul, accuses Levellers 
of plot to kill king, 189. 

Holland, 52, 88, 89, 98. 

Holland, Earl of, trial of, illegal, 
272, 273; mentioned, 277, 299. 

Holland, Sir John, 11 n. 

Holies, Denzil, Parliament in- 
vestigated rumor concerning, 
104; Independents push charges 
against, 105; Presbyterian lead- 
er, 157; Tulidah accused by, 
160; radical petition given, for 
presentation, 161; mentioned, 
94, 173, 174, 191. 

Hone, William, 362. 

Hooker, Thomas, invited to As- 
sembly of Divines, 97. 

Hopton, Lord, Lilburne's connec- 
tion with, 32)3. 

House of Commons, prints Grand 
Remonstrance, 16; beginnings 
of sovereignty in, 17-18; Par- 
ker's opinion of power of, 26; 
sovereignty of, 29-30; members 
of, in what sense representative 



INDEX 



391 



of the people, 40; P3mi de- 
scribes functions of, 44; ordered 
Downing's sermon printed, 45; 
commanded oath to defend 
reformed religion, 69; struggle 
between Presbyterians and, 78- 
79; voted Lilburne's imprison- 
ment illegal, 92; warfare on 
heresy, 99; investigated charges 
of treason against its members 
(1645), 103-104; Lilburne im- 
prisoned by (1645), 105-106; 
freed Lilburne, 107; reprimands 
Stationers for printing unli- 
censed matter, 110 n; action 
on unlicensed preaching, 110 
n; Lilburne's attitude toward 
(1645), 113; actions of, on 
Merchant Adventurers, 118- 
119; authority of, 120; Level- 
lers extol authority of, 121; 
Presbyterians' attitude toward, 
121; attitude of City Remon- 
strance to, 122; Lilburne 
charged King in, 125; Lilburne 
petitioned for protection against 
Lords, 126 ff.; Lilburne urges 
new elections of, 135; govern- 
ment by, 145; power assigned 
to, by Remonstrance Of Citizens, 
148 ff.; radicals petition and 
quarrel with, 156 £f.; condemned 
petition of soldiers (1647), 
165 ff.; members flee to army 
(1647), 169-170; Presbyterians 
excluded from, 170, 301, 305; 
Lilburne denies legal authority 
of, 175 ff.; Levellers' attitude 
toward, 179 ff.; Lilburne's at- 
titude toward (1647), 191-192; 
Levellers petition, 229 ff.; re- 
ferred Lilburne to special com- 
mittee, 259; Levellers' ideal of 
supremacy of, 310-311; men- 
tioned, 132, 172, 204, 263. See 
also House of Lords, Long Par- 
liament, Parliament. 
House of Lords, attitude of House 
of Commons toward, 17-18; in- 
vestigates precedents on king's 
veto power, 20-21; rights of, 



28; delayed reparation to Lil- 
burne, 92; authority of, over 
nation, 120; attitude of City 
Remonstrance to, 122; con- 
troversy as to source of power 
of, 124; Lilburne incurs hos- 
tility of, 125; summoned Lil- 
burne. 126 ff.; tried and sen- 
tenced Lilburne, 128-129; at- 
tempt to arouse public opinion 
against, 130-131; radicals argue 
against judicial power of, 144; 
government by, 145; jurisdic- 
tion over Commons, 153-154, 
158; members absent when army 
entered London (1647), 170; 
question of abolishing veto of, 
197, 233; revoked Lilburne's 
sentence, 259; Lilburne's idea 
of, 311; mentioned, 195. See 
also House of Commons, Long 
Parliament, Parliament. 

Howard, Lord of Escrick, Hi n. 

Humble Petition and Advice, 351. 

Hunton, Philip, author of Treatise 
of Monarchic, 34; opinion on 
origin of government, 34 ff; 
opinion of arbitrary power, 137; 
idea of three co-ordinate es- 
tates, 139; Levellers completed 
ideas of, 346; mentioned, 37, 
222. 

Hyde, Edward, drew up declara- 
tions of king to Parliament, 39; 
prefers Leveller alliance to 
Presbyterian, 313; feared Lil- 
burne's influence with Royal- 
ists, 334. 

Independents, ecclesiastical con- 
troversy with Presbyterians and 
Erastians (1641-1646), 50 ff., 
102 ff.; radicals form Leveller 
party, 50, 103, 107-108, 156; 
undemocracy of, 56-57, 82, 84- 
85; believe in divine law, 61-62, 
66, 73, 79, 83; doctrines of, 
growing out of debates of 
Westminster Assembly, 62 ff.; 
seek Erastian support, 63-64; 



J92 



INDEX 



Presbyterians attack, 64; strug- 
gle with Erastians, 72 ff.; over- 
come by Presbyterians in West- 
minster Assembly, 76-77; in- 
fluence on Levellers, 80 ff.; 
criticise House of Commons 
for Lilbume's imprisonment, 
86; beginnings of party (1641), 
97; political distinction be- 
tween Presbyterians and, 97; 
Lilburne closely allied to, 97, 
101; attitude toward Parlia- 
ment, 97; growth of their 
churches claecked, 98; numerous 
heretical opinions among, 98- 
99; members of, in New Model 
Army, 98, 166; Baillie's opinion 
of, 99; Parliament's policy detri- 
mental to, 108-109; criticise 
policy of Long Parliament, 110- 
111; tracts of, issued from hid- 
den presses, 110 n; political 
position of radicals, 120-121; 
attitude toward Presbyterians 
after issue of City Remon- 
strance, 122 ff.; radicals become 
interested in constitutional re- 
form, 125; petition in behalf of 
Lilburne, 129 ff.; radicals de- 
velop political and constitu- 
tional reforms (1646), 131 ff.; 
break with House of Commons 
over petitions (1647), 157 ff.; 
gain control of London (1647), 
169 ff.; break with Grandees of 
party, 171 ff.; justify army, 184; 
position of, 188; reconciliation 
with Levellers, 231; Walwyn's 
connection with, 245 ff.; alliance 
with Levellers broken (1648), 
258 ff.; Levellers attack action 
of, 270 ff.; mentioned, 202, 237 
n,251. 

Ingram, John, petition of, 230. 

Instrument of Government, 351. 

Ireland, soldiers question cam- 
paign in, 279; Leveller influ- 
ence on soldiers as to campaign, 
300; Agreement of the People 
affected English authority in, 
300. 



IretoD, Henry, author of Solemn 
Engagement, 168 n; Lilburne's 
and Overton's doctrines avoid- 
ed by, 168 n; distrust of Level- 
lers for, 176, 201; opinion on 
status of army, 186 n; author of 
Heads of Proposals, 194; fail- 
ures of policy of, 200; connec- 
tion with Agreement of the 
People, 212, 218 ff., 261 ff., 266; 
constitutional theories of, 218 
ff., 362; debates with Levellers 
in Army Council on Agreement 
of the People, 218 ff.; political 
theories of, 268-269; mutiny 
in regiment of, 280; mentioned, 
104, 215, 224, 302. 

Ives, Jeremy, one of Levellers 
imprisoned, 230 n. 

Jenkins, David, alleged influ- 
ence over Lilburne, 178. 

John, king by election, 145. 

Johnson, Thomas, author of Plea 
for Free-Mens Liberties, 119. 

Joyce, Cornet George, 163, 167. 

Joyce, Jeremiah, 362. 

Keble, Richard, 294. 

Kent, Leveller petition sent to, 
234. 

Kiffen, William, Walwyn ar- 
raigned by, 242 ff.; mentioned, 
247, 252, 332 n. 

King, Colonel, Lilburne commis- 
sioned under, 95; connection 
with proceedings against Lil- 
burne, 96 n, 97, 104, 105 n, 125- 
126; appointed commander in 
Lincolnshire, 134; proceedings 
of Lords against, 153-154; men- 
tioned, 173. 

Kingston, 177 n. 

Lambert, John, connection with 
Heads of Proposals, 194 n. 

Lamer, William, 130 n; impris- 
oned, 131, 230 n. 

Laud, Archbishop William, 15, 91, 
340. 



INDEX 



393 



Law, common, dissatisfaction 
with, in pamphlets (1645), 132. 

Law, fundamental, Parliament's 
use of, 7 £f.; abandoned by Par- 
liament for salus populi, 38 ff.; 
Independents defenders of, 62, 
83, 84, 86; Leveller theories 
based on, 83, 313, 352-353, 
363-364; rights of people under, 
83; imprisonment of Lilburne, 
contrary to, 86, 89; Lilburne's 
zeal for, 108, 112 ff., 132, 340 
ff.; to be saved by recurrence to 
law of nature, 180; basis of 
Agreements, 285, 311; Parlia- 
ment set itself above, 345-346; 
Norwood's theory of, 350-351. 

Law, supremacy of, attacked, 8-9; 
Long Parliament upholds, 10 ff.; 
principles of, 12-13; Pym's 
opinion of, 12; Parliament's de- 
fense of, 23 ff.; Independents up- 
hold, in ecclesiastical affairs, 50, 
56, 58, 82-83; Levellers advo- 
cated, 83-84, 241-242, 301, 348- 
349, 359; theories of (1647), 179 
ff.; first Agreement sets forth, 
193 ff.; limitation of govern- 
ment by, ideal of Levellers, 194, 
197 ff., 311, 326, 346, 363; pro- 
tection of, to vested interests, 
219-220; abandoned in nine- 
teenth-century England, 363; 
accomplished in eighteenth-cen- 
tury America, 364. 

Law of God, Parliament's use of 
46; Independents' bdief in, 62 
mentioned, 68, 155, 219, 220 
Robinson's application of, 75 n 
Levellers' belief in, 83, 343; Lil- 
burne's demand for, 89, 115; in 
Magna Charta, 117-118; Level- 
lers rely on (1646), 137-138; 
Walwyn's belief in, 251. 

Law of nature, 11 n, 363; Parlia- 
ment's use of, 23 ff., 46-47; 
Parker's opinion on, 24 ff.; 
Presbyterians' opinion of, 62; 
Prynne bases submission of 
church government to civil, on, 
74 ff.; Robinson's application 



of, 75 n; Independents inter- 
pretation of, 84; Levellers' in- 
terpretation of, 137, 142, 358- 
359; to save fundamental law, 
180. 

Law of reason. Levellers' belief in, 
83, 137-138, 229, 343, 358-359; 
Lilburne's argument for, 115; 
found in Magna Charta, 117- 
118; mentioned, 155, 363. 

Lawmind, John. See Wildman, 
John. 

Leicester, 102, 166. 

Lenthall, William, charges against 
conduct of, 104, 105. 

Levellers, influenced by earlier 
pamphlet warfare, 42; political 
ideas derived from ecclesiasti- 
cal controversy (1641-1646), 50, 
80 ff.; radical Independents so 
named (1647), 50, 92, 156, 177; 
Independent influence on, 84, 
143; Lilburne exemplified prin- 
ciples of, 86; beginnings of 
party, 107-108; source of con- 
stitutional settlement of, 133 n; 
policy of, 135; state social com- 
pact theory, 142; evolution of 
ideas of, 148 ff.; connection 
with assassination plots against 
king, 169 ff.; attitude of, to- 
ward restoration of king by 
army, 179 ff.; propose first 
Agreement of the People, 193 
ff.; debate on first Agreement of 
the People, 215 ff.; defeated 
on first Agreement of the Peo- 
ple, 224-225; organize party, 
229 ff.; Walwyn's connection 
with, 243. 245-246, 251 ff.; criti- 
cism of organization of, 254- 
255; alliance with Independ- 
ents a 648) broken, 258 ff.; 
petition House of Commons, 
259; mutiny in army due to, 
279 ff.; attitude toward Irish 
campaign (1649), 300; propose 
third Agreement of the People, 
301; attitude toward Common- 
wealth, 307 ff.; Agreement of 
the People published by (1648), 



394 



INDEX 



317 ff.; Lilburne's effect on 
constitutional ideas of, 326 ff., 
337, 342 tT.; disappearance of, 
34S ff.; r^sum^ of ideas of, 356. 
See Independents; Lilburne. 

Leverett, 59. 

Liberty of conscience, Robinson at 
issue with PrATine on, 75-76; 
supported by radical Independ- 
ents, S2; basis of creed of Level- 
lers, 82; Lilburne's interest in, 
120. 

Lightfoot, John, 60. 

Lilburne, George, involved in 
dispute with Haselrig, 328-329; 
uncle of John, 328. 

Lilburne, Henrv, reveals plot to 
kill king. 1S9-1Q0. 

Lilburne, John, exemplified prin- 
ciples of Levellers, S6; early 
life, 87 ff.; reading, 87 n; adopt- 
ed Puritan doctrines and be- 
came a Separatist, 88; associa- 
tion with Bastwick and Whar- 
ton, 88; trial and imprisonment 
for printing Puritan books, 88 
ff.; character of, 90. 94 ff.; 
influence over the people, 91; 
Long Parliament liberated, 92; 
married, 92; entered Parlia- 
ment's army, 92-93; captured, 
tried and exchanged, 94-95; 
refused to take Covenant 
(1645), 95; politically active in 
London, 96-97; injured ir\ Moor- 
fields, 101 n; defends Independ- 
ents against Westminster As- 
sembly, 101; chosen on com- 
mittee to petition Parliament, 
102; Peters's association with, 
103 n; Bastwick's reasons for 
persecuting, 103, 105; House of 
Commons imprisons, 105 ff.; 
petition for release of, 106-107; 
liberated by House (1645), 107; 
party about, 107-108; advo- 
cates new theories of govern- 
ment, 108 ff.; influenced by Ettg- 
lands Lamentable Slaverie, 116 
ff.; attacks monopoly of Mer- 
chant Adventurers, 118; effect 



of criticism of Long Parliament, 
120; affiliated with Independent 
party, 120; attitude toward 
City Remonstrance, 122; delay 
in settlement of claims, 125 n; 
prosecutes Col. King in House 
of Commons, 125; criticism of 
Earl of Manchester, 126, 128; 
attitude toward House of Lords, 
127 ff.; committed to Newgate, 
127; trial (1646) and sentence 
of, 128 ff.; antagonism to com- 
mon law, 132 ff.; urges re-ap- 
portionment of House of Com- 
mons, 135; supports protest 
against government of London, 
135-136; fundament.ll ideas of, 
139 fl.; recommended petition 
to Parliament, 162; relations 
with Independents, 171-172; 
relations with Cromwell, 171 
ff.; influence on New Model 
Army, 174; denied legal author- 
ity of House of Commons 
(1647), 175; misunderstanding 
with Marten, 175 n; distrust of 
Cromwell and Ireton, 176; fa- 
vored by Royalists, later at- 
tacked by them, 177-178; opin- 
ion on power of king and House 
of Commons, 181 ff.; theory of 
New Model Army, 185-186; 
connection with plot to kill 
king, 189 ff.; antagonism to 
House of Commons (1647), 191- 
192; influence on Agreement of 
the People, 205; protested 
against the Covenant, 227; pub- 
lished petitions against army 
officers, 230; distrusted religious 
enthusiasm in politics, 231- 
232; controlled army agents, 
232; takes part in organization 
of Levellers, 234; imprisoned 
for Leveller petition (1648), 237; 
advocated separation of govern- 
ment powers, 238 ff. ; Walwyn's 
influence over, 242, 252; sup- 
ports Cromwell, 259, 327-328; 
member of committee to frame 
second Agreement of the Peo- 



INDEX 



395 



pie, 263; obtained estates in 
Durham, 271; attacked High 
Court of Justice, 271 fT.; re- 
newed political activity (1649), 
274; imprisoned, 276; interpre- 
tation of Solemn Engagement, 
284; charges of Walwins Wiles, 
287; hatred for Haselrig, 288, 
330; trial (1649), 278, 290 IT.; 
acquittal, 297-298, 327; de- 
fense criticised, 298 ff.; con- 
versation with Peters, 307-308, 
324-325; attacked Rump's le- 
gal position, 308 ff.; attitude 
toward military despotism, 311; 
opinion of Charles TI's restora- 
tion, 312; influence on Leveller 
party, 326-327; turns soap- 
boiler (1649), 328; involved 
with Haselrig through Harraton 
colliery case, 328 ff.; banished, 
330; holds Cromwell responsible 
for banishment, 331-332; con- 
nection with Royalists, 331, 
333-334; in Holland, iii-iM; 
attempts to return to England, 
334 ff.; contradictory opinions 
of Cromwell, 335; trial (1653), 
336 ff.; cause of banishment, 346 
-347; acquittal, 348; kept pris- 
oner by Cromwell, 348, 353; 
became Quaker, 353, 355; died 
(1657), 353; insignificance of 
last years, 354-355; influence on 
public affairs, 356, 362; men- 
tioned, 56 n, 121, 124, 134, 135, 
141,143n, 147, 153n, 175, 186n, 
217, 246, 247, 278, 298, 321 n, 
322, 327, 361. writings: Rash 
Oaths unwarrantable C1647), 56 
n; Come out of her, my people 
(1640), 92 n; Prisoners Plea 
lor a Habeas Corpus (1648), 92 n; 
lust Mans I tistification (1646), 
98 n; resolved mans Resolution 
(1647), 101 n; Engla>id's Birth- 
right Justified (1645), 108 ff;. 
Copy of a Letter, (1645), 112; 
Innocency And Truth Justified 
(1645), 115; Free-Mans Free- 
dome Vindicated (1646), 128; 



Anatomy of the Lords Tvrannv 
(1646), 130; lonahs Cry' out of 
the Whales belly (1647), 171 n; 
luglers Discovered (1647), 174 
n; Two Letters: The One From 
Lievtenant Colonell John Lil- 
bourne To Colonel Henry Mar- 
lin_ . . . With His Answer, 
175 n; Two Letters writ by 
Lievt Col. John Lilburne, Pre- 
rogative prisoner in the Tower 
(1647), 176 n; Out-cryes of op- 
pressed Commons (1647), 180; 
Defiance to Tyrants (1647), 239 
n ; Impeachment Of High Treason 
Against Oliver Cromwell (1649), 
284 n, 288; Preparative To An 
Hue And Cry after Sir Arthur 
Haselrig (1649), 288; Legal 
Fundamentall Liberties (1649), 
288; Strength out of Weaknesse, 
290 n; Salva Libertate, 291; 
Just Defence of John Lilburne 
against Such as charge him with 
Turbulency of Spirit (1653), 
353-354. 

Lilburne, Mrs. John, House of 
Lords prohibits visits to hus- 
band, 129 n; influence on John, 
300; efforts for husband's re- 
lease, 335, 347; mentioned, 173. 

Lilburne, Robert, 225, 291, 292 n, 
294. 

Locke, John, influence of, 364. 

Lockyer, Robert, shot for mutiny, 
279; effect of execution on sol- 
diers, 280; mentioned, 353, 360. 

Long Parliament, limits power of 
king, 10-11; exemption of mem- 
bers from civil suits, 11 n; as- 
sumes power to interpret law, 
13; split of constitutional party 
in, 16; justified position by law 
of salus populi, 18; sovereignty 
set forth in Declaration (May 
19, 1642), 19-20; orders army 
to be raised, 21-22; Hunton's 
defense of, 34 ff.; calls West- 
minster Assembly, 50; con- 
troversy with \\^estminster As- 
sembly, 67 ff.; commits printer 



396 



INDEX 



of the Protestation Protested, 
70; Lilburne set at liberty by, 
92; Independents' attitude to- 
ward, 97, 105, 139, 184 ff.; Lil- 
burne attacks for suffering per- 
secution of Independents, 100- 
101; Lilburne member of com- 
mittee to petition, 102; peti- 
tioned to dissolve Assembly of 
Divines, 102-103; radicals dis- 
satisfied with, 108; corruptness 
of, 110 n. 111, 202; limits 
preaching, 112; Lilburne criti- 
cises policy of, 118, 120; City 
Remonstrance to, 122; Lil- 
burne warns to uphold rights 
of people, 122; defenders of, 
interpret law of nature, 142- 
143; attitude toward Leveller 
ideals, 193; instability of con- 
stitutional settlement (1647) by, 
197; Fairfax proposed dissolu- 
tion of, 224; informed of Leveller 
meetings, 232; mentioned, 8-9, 
27,67,77,86,109,110,123-124, 
150, 151, 174-175, 224, 245. 
See also House of Commons, 
House of Lords, Nominated 
Parliament, Parliament, Rump 
Parliament. 

Lordell, David, 177; charges 
against Walwyn, 243 n. 

Ludlow, Edmund, 201 n. 

Magna Charta, sovereignty of 
law found in, 12-13; Lilburne's 
use of, 108, 112 ff., 132-133; in- 
terpretation of in Englands 
Lamentable Slaverie, 116 ff.; 
considered by Levellers com- 
pact with people, 145; Walwyn's 
attitude toward, 250; Crom- 
well's idea of, 351; mentioned, 
44, 162. 

Manchester, Earl of, Lilburne's 
attitude toward, 95, 126, 128; 
mentioned, 98, 134. 

Marpriest, Martin, 100, 110 n. 

Marston Moor, 216. 

Marten, Henry, appointed to in- 
quire into Lords' proceedings 



against Lilburne, 130; Lil- 
burne's episode with, 175 n; sup- 
posed to have designs on Crom- 
well's life, 191; connection with 
Levellers, 201 n, 274; accused 
of meeting with London agents, 
232 n; Independent representa- 
tive to frame second Agreement 
of the People, 263; implicated 
with Royalists, 331; mentioned, 
153 n, 155, 201, 252, 260 n, 275 
n, 346. 

Massachusetts Bay, 64, 81, 85, 
364. 

Masterson, George, 237, 254. 

Matilda, disregards Confessor's 
laws, 145. 

Mayne, Jasper, author of Ochlo- 
machia, 183 n. 

Merchant Adventurers, monopoly 
of, 118-119, 158; Walwyn 
member of, 244 n. 

Militia Ordinance, 18 ff., 39, 46, 
135 n. 

Milton, John, on divine right of 
episcopacy, 67, 69 n; argument 
against Presbyterians, 303;weak- 
ness of doctrine of, 304. 

Moyle, John, 346. 

Musgrave, John, imprisonment of, 
130-131. 

Naseby, 166, 216. 

Nedham, Marchamont, author of 
Case oj the Kingdom Stated 
(1647), 63 n, 183 n; advocated 
king's alliance with Independ- 
ents, 183 n; author of Lawyer of 
Lincolnes-Inne Rejormed (1647), 
197 n; defends Commonwealth, 
306-307; mentioned, 178 n, 254, 
349. 

Newcombe, Thomas, testified 
against Lilburne (1649), 295, 
2>>6. 

Newark, 125 n. 

New England, powers of Inde- 
pendent congregations in, 53- 
54; power of synods in, 55; 
power of magistrates over 
churches, 64; develops under 



INDEX 



397 



theory of fundamental law, 
364; mentioned, 59, 81, 82, 97, 
103 n. 

New Model Army, Solemn En- 
gagement signed by soldiers of, 
167-168; proposed scheme of 
reform, 168; Lilburne's influence 
in, 174; various parties state its 
mission (1647), 184 ff.; revolu- 
tionary status of, 188; unpopu- 
larity of, 202 ff.; Ireton debates 
with Levellers in council of, 218 
£f.; Lilburne's criticism of offi- 
cers' power, 230; Saltmarsh's 
prophecy to, 254; disaffection 
of crushed a649), 279 ff.; com- 
parison between Leveller and 
soldier of, 357-358', mentioned, 
93, 156, 163, 164, 166, 169- 
184, passim, 200, 201, 236, 349, 
358. 

Newspapers: Certain Occurrences, 
275 n; Dutch Spy, 333; French 
Intelligencer, 332 n; Heads of 
Chief Passages in Parliament, 
238 n; Kingdoms Intelligencer, 
290 n; Man in the Moone, 287 n, 
290 n; Mercurius Elencticus, 
177, 178 n, 232 n, 290 n, 291 n, 
314 n; Mercurius Pacificus, 324; 
Mercurius Politicus, 353 n; 
Mercurius Pragmaticus, 177, 
178 n, 225, 232, 254. 259 n, 274, 
275 n, 286 n, 289, 290 n, 291 n, 
298, 306, 314, 315 n, 324; Moder- 
ate, 286 n, 289 n, 290 n; Moder- 
ate Intelligence, 324; Moderate 
Messenger, 289 n; Modest Nar- 
rative of Intelligence, 279 n, 289 
n, 315 n; Royall Diurnal, 328 n. 

Nicholas, Edward, feared Lil- 
burne's influence with Royal- 
ists, 334. 

Nominated Parliament, refuses to 
revoke Rump's sentence of Lil- 
burne, 336; defenses of, 349-350. 

Norwood, Capt. Robert, Leveller 
constitutional ideas reach climax 
in writings of, 344-345; con- 
ceptions of supreme law, 350- 
351. 



Nottinghamshire, Agreement of 
the People agitated in, 232-233. 

Nowell, Isaac, 59. 

Nye, Philip, one of five Holland 
ministers, 52 n; opinion on di- 
vine right of ruling elder, 52 n; 
opinion on authority of presby- 
tery, 58 n; arguments against 
Presbyterian system, 63 ; 
quoted, 82. 

Overton, Richard, author of 
Arraignment of Mr. Persecu- 
tion (1645), 100 n; attitude to- 
ward Lilburne's imprisonment, 
130; imprisoned for printing a 
radical book, 131; belief in 
rights of individual, 141-142; 
author of Arrow Against All 
Tyranis (1646), 142 n; saw 
need of awakening people to a 
sense of oppression, 148; au- 
thor of Defiance Against All Ar- 
bitrary Usurpations (1646), 148; 
opinion on burning of petitions 
(1647), 161-162; distrusted 
Cromwell and Ireton, 176; 
author of A p peak (1647), 176 n; 
author of Out-cryes of oppressed 
Cotnmons (1647), 180; appeal to 
reason, 180 n; reforms of, con- 
trasted with Heads of Proposals, 
196-197, 226-227; present at 
meetings of army agents, 232; 
imprisoned (1649), 276; author 
of Defyance Of The Act of Par- 
don (1649), 287; author of Bait- 
ing Of Tlte Great Bull of Bashan 
(1649), 287 n; influence on 
Levellers, 314; supported Lil- 
burne in trial, 337; mentioned, 
152, 153 n, 168 n, 173, 217, 225, 
246 n, 247, 252, 321 n. 

Oxford, Lilburne prisoner at, 94, 
96 n; Leveller petition sent to, 
234; uprising in garrison at, 289- 
290; mentioned, 103, 277. 

Oxford, Capt. Wendy, author of 
Vincit qui patitur, 333; Lilburne 
accused by, 333 n. 



398 



INDEX 



Pamphlets: Additional Discourse 
Relating unto a Treatise by 
Capt. Robert Norwood, 345 n, 
350 n, 351 n; Additional Plea of 
Lilburne, 178 n, 192; Afflicted 
Mans Out Cry, 342 n; Agree- 
ment of the Free People of Eng- 
land, By Lilburne, William 
Walwyn, Thomas Prince and 
Richard Overton, Prisoners in 
the Tower of London, 311 n, 317 
n; Alarum To the Headquar- 
ters, 206 n; Alarum To the 
House of Lords, 130 n; Animad- 
versions Upon Notes, 40 n; 
Anatomy of Lilburn's Spirit and 
Pamphlets, 314 n; Anatomy of 
the Lords Tyranny and injustice, 
128 n, 130; Another Word to 
the Wise, 137 n; Answer to An 
Humble Remonstrance (Smec- 
tymnuus), 67 n; Answer to 
Libell Intituled A Coole Con- 
ference, 64 n; Answer to Nine 
Arguments, 56 n; Answer to 
Plain English, 41 n; Answer to 
Prynn's Twelve Questions, 75 n; 
Answer to W. R., 58 n; Anti- 
Cavalierisme, 108, 111, 146; 
Apologetical Narration, 331 n, 
332 n, 342 n, 361 n; Appeale 
From the degenerate Repre- 
sentative Body the Commons, 
162 n, 176 n, 180 n, 196, 321 n; 
Armies Petition, 262 n; Army 
Harmelesse, 184 n; Army No 
Usurpers, 349 n; Army Vindi- 
cated, 349 n; Army's Martyr, 
280 n; Arguments To Prove 
Unlawfulness Of Taking the 
New Engagement, 303 n; Ar- 
raignment of Mr. Persecution, 
100 n; Arrow Against All Ty- 
rants, 142 n. Banished mans suit 
for Protection, 336 n; Baiting 
Of The Great Bull of Bashan, 
287 n; Beacon Flameing, 361 n; 
Bloody Tenent of Persecution, 
65 n, 85; Briefe Narration of 
Church Courses Held in New 
England, 65 n; Brothers of the 



Separation, 97 n. Cal To All The 
Souldiers Of The Armie, 206; 
Calumny Arraign'd, 72 n; Case 
Of The Armie Trulv stated, 184 
n, 186 n, 203, 205, 228, 255; 
Case Of The Army Discussed, 
143 n; Case Of The Common- 
wealth Stated, 307 n; Case of 
The King Stated, 254; Case of 
the Kingdom Stated, 63 n, 
183 n; Case of Shipmony, 8 n, 
11 n; Certain Observations on 
Master Prins Twelve Questions, 
56 n, 73 n, 75 n; Certaine con- 
siderations, 67 n; Certain Quae- 
res Humbly presented, 306 n, 
323 n; Charity of Church-Men, 
244 n, 248 n, 249 n, 252 n; Chris- 
tian Mans Trial 1, 89 n; City 
Remonstrance Remonstrated, 
124 n; cleere Vindication Of the 
late Proceedings, 185 n; Come 
out of her my people, 92 n; Com- 
plaint To House of Commons, 
42 n; Confusion Confounded, 
349 n; Contra Replicant, 26 n; 
Copy of a Letter, 105 n, 109 n, 
112, 173 n; Copy of Letter to 
Sir Thomas Fairfax, 185 n; 
Craftsmens Craft, 314 n; Cry Of 
A Stone, 63 n, 85. Declaration 
Of The Armie, 332 n; Declara- 
tion of the Parliament, 303 n, 
314 n; Declaration Of Prince 
of Wales, 282 n; Declaration 
Of General Fairfax, 281 n, 283 
n; Declaration Of some Pro- 
ceedings, 233 n, 234 n; Declara- 
tion Of Well-affected, 352 n; 
Defensive Declaration, 331 n, 332 
n, 2i?)S n, 334 n; Defiance Against 
Usurpations, 148; Defiance to 
Tyrants, 239 n; Disclaimer Of 
The Commons, 29; Discourse 
betweene A Resolved and a 
Doubtful Englishman, 31, 48- 
49; Disco vrse Betwixt Lilburn 
and Peter, 308 n, 324-325; 
Discourse Opening Nature Of 
Episcopacie In England, 45, 67 
n; Discourse Concerning Pari- 



INDEX 



399 



tans, 11 n, 46; Discoverer, 284 n; 
Discovery of Swarme of Separa- 
tists, 97 n; Discreet Discourse 
Betweene Wisedome And Pietie- 
69 n; Dissembling Scot, 361 n, 
Engagement Vindicated & Ex- 
plained, 310 n, 327 n; England's 
Birth-right, 130 n; Englands 
Discoverer, 314 n; Englands La- 
mentable Slaverie, 116 ff., 250; 
Englands New-Chaines Dis- 
covered, 246, 274, 286, 308 n, 
310 n; Englands Safety, 352 n; 
Englands Standard Advanced, 
280 n, 281 n; Englands weep- 
ing spectacle, 94 n, 96 n; Eng- 
lish Souldiers Standard, 201 n, 
300. Fountain Of Slaunder, 247 
n, 248 n, 249 n, 250 n, 251 n, 252 
n; Foure Questions, 72 n; Free- 
mans Freedome Vindicated, 126 
n, 128, 129, 139 n; Fresh Dis- 
covery Of New Wandring- 
Blasing-Stars, 65 n, 102 n; 
Frivolous Paper, 29 n; Full 
Narrative of Proceedings be- 
tweene Fairfax and Mutineers, 
280 n, 281 n, 283 n; Full Pro- 
ceedings at Rendezvous in Cork- 
bush field, 225 n, 285; full reply 
to brief e Observations, 74 n; 
Fuller Answer To Treatise by 
Feme, 32 n; Fundamental 
Lawes and Liberties Of England 
Claimed by Levellers, 344 n. 
Gangraena, 65 n, 72 n, 98 n, 101 
n, 102 n, 103 n, 107 n, 121 n; 
Gold tried in the fire, 158 n, 
159 n, 160 n, 161 n, 162 n; 
Grand Catastrophe, 349 n; 
Great Fight Neer Droghedah. 
290 n. Healing Question, 351; 
Hopes Deferred, 77 n; Humble 
Petition Of Brownists, 256; 
Humble Representation of 
Northumberland Regiment, 261 
n; Hunting of the Foxes, 275 n. 
Impeachment of High Treason 
Against Cromwell, 233 n, 234 
n, 237 n, 284 n, 288, 291, 
295, 309 n, 310 n; Independency 



Examined, 73 n; Independency 
of Churches, 55 n; Inhumanity 
of Prison Keeper, 94 n; Inno- 
cenciesTriumph, 65 n; Innocency 
And blood of slain Souldiers, 
190; Innocencv And Truth 
Justified, 87 n, 91 n,92 n, 94 n, 98 
n, 101 n, 102 n, 103 n, 105 n, 106 
n, 107 n, 115-116, 119, 125 n, 
130 n, Innocency and Truth 
Triumphing 58 n, 76 n; In- 
nocent Man's first Proffer, 292 
n; Innocent Man's second Prof- 
fer, 292 n, 324; Interest of Eng- 
and, 123; lonahs Cry, 171 n, 
172n, 173n, 174n, 182n, 185n; 
Ivglers Discovered, 174 n, 176 n, 
177 n, 178 n, 192; lust Man In 
Bonds, 128 n, 146 n; lust Mans 
lustification, 98 n, 126, 127, 129, 
132, 134 n; lust Reproof, 329 n, 
330. John White's Defence, 
154; Juries justified, 116 n, 246 
n; Tury-man"s Judgement on 
Lilburn, 337 n, 342 n, 343 n; 
Just Apologie, 165 n; Just De- 
fence of Bastwick, 88 n, 98 n, 
103 n, 105, 108 n ; Just Defence of 
Lilburne, 96 n, 353-354; Justice 
upon the Annie Remonstrance, 
266 n. Keyes of Heaven, 58 
n, 82; Kingdomes Case, 29 n; 
Kings Cabinet, 166. Last Will 
Of Lilburne, 354 n; Lawes Fun- 
erall, 241 n; Lawfulness Of Late 
Passages Of Army, 187 n; Law- 
yer Reformed, 197 n; Lawyers 
Bane, 197 ff.; Leaves of the Tree 
Of Life, 266 n, 357 n; Legal 
Fundamentall Liberties, 87 n, 94 
n, 248 n, 259 n, 260 n, 261 n, 262 
n, 263 n, 264 n, 271 n, 272 n, 273 
n, 277, 288, 291,295, 309 n, 310 
n, 312 n, 315 n, 322 n, 324; Le- 
tany, 88; Letter Of Censure, 
298 n; Letter From A Gentle- 
man to his friend, 41 n; Letter 
Of Lilburnes, 329 n; Letter 
to An Intelligent Independent, 
183 n; Letter from Lilburne, 94 
n; Letter from Army Agitators 



400 



INDEX 



To their Regiments, 206; Let- 
ter To a Gentleman, 349 n; 
Levellers Designe Discovered, 
282 n, 300; Levellers Vindicated, 
280 n, 282 n, 283 n, 284 n, 322 
n; Lex Rex, 36; Libertie of Con- 
science, 65 n; Liberty Vindi- 
cated, 137 n; Lilburne His 
Apologeticai Narration, 327 n, 
328 n; Lilburn's Plea in Law, 
337 n, 341 n, 342 n; Lilburne 
revived, 292 n, 310 n, 335 n; Lil- 
burns Ghost, 352 n; Londons 
ancient Privileges, 136 n; Lon- 
dons Liberty In Chains, 128 n, 
136 n, 138, 144 n; Lyar Con- 
founded, 101 n, 108 n. M.S. 
To A. S. Plea for Libertie of 
Conscience, 65 n; Malice de- 
tected, 334 n; Manifestation 
from Lilburn, Walwyn, Prince 
and Overton, and others, 316 
n; Martin's Eccho, 100 n; Mod- 
erate Reply To The Citie Re- 
monstrance, 123; More Light 
To Lilburne's Jury, 342 n, 343 n, 
344 n; Musgrave Muzl'ed, 329 n. 
Neutrality condemned, 134 n; 
New Bull-Bay ting, 287 n; New 
Engagement, 262 n; New Pres- 
byterian Light, 187 n; No Re- 
turn To Monarchy, 352 n. 
Oath of Allegiance And Na- 
tional Covenant Non-Obliging, 
302 n; Observations upon his 
Majesties Answers, 23; Obser- 
vator Defended, 28 n; Ochlo- 
machia, 183 n; Ordinance for 
Tythes Dismounted, 100 n; Out- 
Cry Of Apprentices of London, 
288, 289 n, 291, 295, 313 n, 322 
n; Out-Cryes of Commons, 180; 
Overton's Defyance Of Pardon, 
287 n. Pack Of Puritans, 67 n; 
Papers From The Armie, 202 n; 
Pathway Unto Settlement, 350 
n, 351 n; Pax Vobis, 15 n; peo- 
ples Prerogative asserted, 230 n, 
232 n, 239 n; Petition Rejected 
by Parliament, 342 n; Picture 
Of Councel of State, 246 n, 276 n, 



287 n; Plain English, 103 n; 
Plea for Free-Mens Liberties, 
119; Plea at large. For Lilburn, 
341 n, 342 n; Plea for Non- 
Scribers, 303 n; Political Cate- 
chism, 28 n; Prediction Of Ed- 
wards, 245 n, 257 ; Preparative 
To Hue And Cry after Haslerig, 
271 n, 288, 291, 295 ff., 314 n; 
Prince Charles His Message To 
Levellers, 290 n; Prince Charles 
Proclaimed King, 290 n; Prison- 
er's Cry, 337 n; Prisoners Plea 
for Habeas Corpus, 92 n, 240 n; 
Prisoners mournfull cry, 240 n; 
Privileges of Parliaments, 14 n; 
Protection Perswading Sub- 
jection, 349 n; Protestation Pro- 
tested, 69; Putney Projects, 
195 n. Rash Oaths unwar- 
rantable, 56 n, 162 n, 163 n, 
182 n, 227; Reason of Church 
Government, 69 n; Reasons 
Against Agreement with Foun- 
dations of Freedome, 300; Rea- 
sons against Independant Gov- 
ernment of Congregations, 71 
n; Reasons why House of Com- 
mons ought to suspend Mem- 
bers charged by Army, 184 
n; Reasons Why Supreme Au- 
thority Is Not In Parliament, 
349 n; Reformation in England, 
67 n; Regall Tyrannie, 108 n, 
138, 143 ff.; Remonstrance con- 
cerning late discontent, 225 n; 
Remonstrance Of Many Thou- 
sand Citizens, 146 £f., 163, 288, 
289 n, 323 n; resolved mans 
Resolution, 101 n, 125 n, 157 n, 
169 n; Riddles Unridled, 183 n; 
Royal Project, 303 n. Saints 
Apology, 58 n; Salus Populi 
solus Rex, 302 n; Salva Liber- 
tate, 291, 295; Scripture And 
Reason for Defensive Armes, 
35; Sea Green & Blue, 284 n; 
Second Address to Cromwell, 
336 n; second Part Englands 
New-Chaines Discovered, 275; 
Second Part Triall of Lilburne 



INDEX 



401 



328 n; Second Part Vox Populi, 
28; second view of Army Re- 
monstrance, 266 n, 323 n; Ser- 
mon preached to Company of 
Artillery, 45; Several Proposals, 
352 n; Severall Informations, 
334 n; Severall Speeches, 302; 
Short Discourse Between Mon- 
archical And Aristocratical Gov- 
ernment, 305 n; Silken Inde- 
pendents Snare Broken, 177 n, 
287n, 300; Some Observations 
upon Apologeticall Narration, 
64 n; Some Queries, 187 n; 
Speculum Libertatis Angliae, 
352 n; Speech of St. John, 47; 
Speech of Viscount Saye and 
Scale, 84; Sir John Maynards 
Speech in House of Commons, 
237 n, 259 n; Still & Soft Voice, 
249 n; Strength out of Weak- 
nesse, 276 n, 290 n, 293 n, 309 
n, 310 n, 312 n, 321 n, 324; Sub- 
jects Liberty, 32 n; Survey Of 
Protestation Protested, 71 n. 
Tenure of Kings and Magis- 
trates, 303 n; Theomachia, 66 
n; Third Address to his Excel- 
lency, 336 n; Totall Demands 
from Agitators and Army, 187 n; 
Treatise Of Monarchie, 34; 
Triall Of Lilburne, 291 n- 
298 n; Trojan Horse Of Pres- 
byteriall Government, 63 n; 
True Copy of Letter touching 
Government in churches of New 
England, 65 n; True Grounds of 
Ecclesiastical 1 Regiment, 47; 
True Relation concerning Coun- 
cels of War, 231 n; True Por- 
traiture of Kings Of England, 
305 n; True Relation of Busi- 
ness of Bur ford, 281 n, 283 n; 
True State Of Commonwealth, 
349 n; Trvth Trivmphing over 
Falsehood, 76 n; Truths tri- 
umph, 233 n, 238 n; Truths Vic- 
tory, 296 n; Tryall of Lilbum, 
339 n; XXV Queries, 352 n; 
Two Letters, 175 n; Two Letters 
by Lilburne, prisoner in the 
Tower, 176 n, 177 n, 185 n. 



Upright Mans Vindication, 298 
n^ 336 n. View Of A Printed 
Book, 41 n; Vincit qui patitur, 
333 n; Vindication of Crom- 
well and Ireton, 231 n; Vindi- 
cation of Parliament, 29 n; 
Vindication Of Profession Of 
Law, 139, 155; Vindiciae Voti, 
70; Vox Plebis, 133 n, 154, 155; 
Vox Populi, 201 n. Walwins 
Wiles, 190, 243 n, 246-256, 
passim, 287; Walwyns Just 
Defence, 172 n, 177 n, 191, 243- 
251, passim, 287 n; Warning 
For all Counties, 180 n; Watch- 
mans Warning-Piece, 164-165; 
Way of the Churches Cleared, 
53 n; Way of the Churches in 
New England, 58 n; Whip for 
the House of Lords, 237, 238 n; 
Whisper In The Fare, 244 n, 
245 n, 246 n; Wonderful Pre- 
dictions To Fairfax and His 
Army, 254; Word More To 
Edwards, 245 n; Word in sea- 
son, 122, 251; Word of Counsell, 
352 n; word to the Wise, 130 n; 
Works of Darkness brought 
to Light, 187 n. 

Parker, Henry, author of Case of 
Shipmony, 8 n; Discourse Con- 
cerning Puritans, 11 n; Observa- 
tions upon his Majesties late 
Anstvers and Expresses, 23; 
doctrine of Parliamentary sover- 
eignty, 24 ff., 38, 43, 47 ff., 115, 
119, 139; author of Contra 
Replicant, 26 n; Observator De- 
fended, 28 n; Political Catechism, 
28 n; opinion on compact 
theory, 31; opinion on law of 
nature, 46; author of True 
Grounds ot Ecclesiasticall Regi- 
ment, 47; Discourse Betweene A 
Resolved and a Doubtfull English- 
man, 48-49; allowed legislative 
power to church, 68; quoted by 
Lilburne, 115; compart theory 
of, 137; constitutional theory 
of, prevailed, 362; mentioned, 
36, 37, 85, 222. 

Parker, Thomas, 65 n. 



402 



INDEX 



Parliament, evolution of sover- 
eignty of, 7ff.; Berkeley's opin- 
nion of sovereignty of, 8; func- 
tions of, in seventeenth and 
twentieth centuries, conception 
of as court, 1 5-1 6 ; relation of king 
to, 20-21; sovereignty based on 
law of nature, 23 ft.; opinions on 
sovereignty of, 27 ff.; Royalists 
attack sovereignty of, 38 ff.; 
sovereignty based on compact 
theory, 42-43; Grimston and 
Pym designate as court, 43, 
44; Parker's idea of, 43, 115; 
bishops and judges usurp juridi- 
cal power of, 44-45; opinions 
on church control by, 61-62; 
Prynne's belief in church gov- 
ernment ordained by, 72 ff.; 
Robinson opposes supremacy of, 
over church, 75-76; claims su- 
premacy over church, 79; power 
of, 93, 123 ff.; Lilburne advo- 
cated reforms in, 114-115, 132, 
134; authority of, defined, 116- 
117; may not encroach on 
popular rights, 118; Levellers' 
attitude toward, 179 ff., 270- 
271; Presbyterians' attitude to- 
ward, 187; may not have power 
to waive constitution, 194; 
Heads of Proposals present 
reforms for, 195 ff., 226-227; 
first Agreement affects, 207 
ff.; Lilburne's suggestion to 
separate powers of, 229, 239 
ff.; Walwyn's attitude toward, 
243 ff.; Ireton's conception of, 
268-269; limitations on, in 
third Agreement, 317 ff.; method 
of, in interpreting fundamental 
laws, 345; Leveller ideal to 
limit supremacy of, 345-346; 
supreme in nineteenth cen- 
tury, 363; mentioned, 113, 137, 
156, 160, 163, 168, 228, 263, 
308, 342, 344. See also House 
of Commons, House of Lords, 
Long Parliament, Nominated 
Parliament, Rump Parliament. 

Parsons, Robert, author of Severall 
Speeches, 302 n. 



Percy, Lord, Lilburne's connec- 
tion with, ?)32>. 

Peters, Hugh, activity and in- 
fluence of, 102-103; Edwards's 
opinion of, 103 n; conversation 
with Lilburne, 307-308, 324- 
325; mentioned, 189. 

Petition of Right, regarded as a 
judicial decision, 16; Lilburne's 
use of, 108, 112 ff.; mentioned, 
13, 44, 307. 

Pettus (or Petty), Maximilian, 
member of committee to frame 
second Agreement of the Peo- 
ple, 263; retains Leveller ideas, 
352 n; mentioned, 220. 

Pierrepont, William, 104. 

Presbyterians, ecclesiastical con- 
troversy with Independents and 
Erastians (1641-1646), 50 ff., 
102 ff.; distinction between In- 
dependents and, 51 ff., 62; 
slight power of congregation 
among, 53; organization of 
national church of, 55; concept 
of church membership among, 
56-57; ministerial caste among, 
59; attempt to impose religious 
code on England, 61; Independ- 
ents overcome by, in West- 
minster Assembly, 76-77; over- 
come by Parliament on divine 
right, 79; political distinction 
between Independents and, 97; 
attack on powers of, 100; politi- 
cal conservatism of, 121-122; 
Independents' attitude toward, 
122 ff.; checked, 125; hostility 
to New Model Army, 166; criti- 
cise army, 186 ff.; fear of res- 
toration of power of, 200; Wal- 
wyn's connection with, 245, 247; 
Levellers reject overtures of, 
259; representation suggested 
on committee to frame Agree- 
ment of the People, 263; ex- 
cluded from House of Com- 
mons, 301; attitude toward 
king's execution, 303; men- 
tioned, 50, 51, 97, 98 n, 99, 156, 
157, 164, 166, 204, 237 n, 251, 
313. 



INDEX 



403 



Presbyterianism, Baillie's concept 
of, 72. 

Price, John, author of City-Re- 
monstrance Remonstrated , 124 n; 
hostility to Walwyn, 243 n, 
245, 260 n; mentioned, 172, 
177, 247, 252. 

Price, Richard, 245. 

Pride, Thomas, excluded Pres- 
byterian members from House 
of Commons, 301. 

Prideaux, Edmund, Lilburne 
brought before, 290; Lilburne 
charged by (1649), 294 £f.; in- 
terview with Lilburne, 312 n; 
refused Lilburne admission to 
Temple, 328 n; mentioned, 293. 

Pride's Purge, 265, 270, 301, 305, 
308. 

Primate, Josiah, involved in dis- 
pute with Haselrig, 328-329; 
sentence of, 330 ; mentioned, ii 1 . 

Prince, Thomas, author of Silken 
Independents Snare Broken.^ 177 
n, 287; imprisoned, 230 n, 276; 
denies charges, 287; opinion of 
Irish policies, 300; supported 
Lilburne in trial, 337; men- 
tioned, 246 n. 

Prynne, William, author of Fresh 
Discovery Of Neiv-Blasing-Stars, 
65 n; attitude of Scotch Pres- 
byterians toward, 72; opinion of 
Independents' church govern- 
ment, 72; author of Foure seri- 
ous Questions, 72 n; author of 
Independency Examined, etc., 
73 n; Erastian doctrines of, 74 
£f.; author of Full Reply To 
certaine Observations, 74 n; issue 
with Goodwin, 76; author of 
Truth Triumphing over False- 
hood, 76 n; Lilburne challenged 
to debate, 101; author of Lyar 
Confounded, 101 n; opinion of 
meeting at Windmill Tavern, 
102-103; opinion of Lilburne, 
103, 108; Lilburne's opinion of 
actions of, 106 n; delays settling 
Lilburne's arrears, 125 n; men- 
tioned, 110 n. 



Puritans, 9 n, 59, 69 n, 85, 87, 88, 
97, 256, 257, 320, 324, 364. 

Putney, 177. 

Pym, John, opinion on sovereignty 
of law, 12; opinion on relations 
of Houses of Parliament, 17-18; 
designates House of Commons 
a court, 44; declares salus 
populi supreme law, 45-46 
opinion on compact theory, 47 
quoted by Lilburne, 119,307 
mentioned, 16, 152. 

Rainsborough, Thomas, connec- 
tion with Levellers, 201 n; de- 
bate with Ireton, 219-220; men- 
tioned, 201, 275. 

Rathband, William, author of 
Brlefe Narration of Some Church 
Courses, 65 n. 

Reeves, Justice, 126. 

Reynolds, John, 275, 282. 

Rich, Nathaniel, 173, 174, 262 n. 

Richard II, 221 n. 

Riley, Hugh, 333. 

Robinson, Henry, attacks 
Prynne's use of law of nature, 
74-75; arguments compared to 
Burton's, 75; author of Cer- 
taine briefe Observations, 75 n; 
Liberty of Conscience, 256; Short 
Discourse Between Monarchical 
And Aristocratical Government, 
305 n; mentioned, 65, 73 n. 

Roe, Colonel, 104. 

Rogers, 334 n. 

Rosier, Edmund, charges against 
WalwjTi, 243 n. 

Rous, Captain, 154. 

Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 120. 

Royalists, protest against Grand 
Remonstrance, 16-17; comment 
on writings of, 35; attack sover- 
eignty of Parliament, 38 ff.; 
Lilburne exchanged as prisoner 
of war, by, 95; people urged to 
rise against (1645), 102; attitude 
toward break between Level- 
lers and Independents, 177-178; 
attitude toward king's restora- 
tion, 179 ff.; attitude toward 



404 



INDEX 



Levellers, 285; relation of Com- 
monwealth to, 303-304; rela- 
tions with Levellers, 314; Lil- 
burne's relations with, in Hol- 
land, m-diM, 337; Levellers 
join (1653), 348; mentioned, 
27, ii, 104, 156-157, 169, 190, 
236, 317, 329, 331, 354. 

Rump Parliament, Ireton pro- 
posed dissolution of, 264-265; 
second Agreement proposed dis- 
solution of, 267; Lilburne's 
opinion of, 272-273, 276, 277, 
292, 299; Lilburne petitioned, 
274; Levellers' attitude to- 
ward, 275 ff., 308, 326; measures 
of, in suppressing mutinv, 279 
ff., 308-309; soldiers de'fy, on 
Irish campaign, 279; subdues 
civilian Levellers, 279; origin 
of, 301 ff.; legality of, 305; 
Lilburne questions legality of, 
308 ff.; Lilburne wishes sen- 
tence of, revoked, 336; Lil- 
burne imprisoned and banished 
by, 328 ff.; violated principles 
of civil freedom in banishing 
Lilburne, 340; sentence on Lil- 
burne, 346-347. 

Rutherford, Samuel, author of 
Lex Rex, 36; opinion on origin 
of government, 36-37; opinion 
of arbitrary government, 137; 
Lilburne's philosophy compared 
with, 141. 

Rutlandshire, 233, 234. 

Rye, Bastwick seeks election from, 
103 n. 



Sadler, J., 123 n. 

St. Albans, 274. 

St. John, Oliver, opinion on king's 
prerogative, 10, 14 n; sets forth 
judges' usurpation of parliamen- 
tary power, 44; author of Speech 
or Declaration Of Mr. St. John, 
47; Lilburne's antipathy to, 
171; mentioned, 47, 104. 

Salloway, Major, proposes rising 
against Royalists, 102. 



Salmasius, Milton's reply to, 
303-304. 

Salters Hall, committee of, 105 n. 

Saltmarsh, John, prophecy of, 254. 

Sains populi. See Government. 

Savile, Lord, Holies accused by, 
104. 

Saye and Seale, Lord, attitude 
toward democracy, 84; men- 
tioned, 154. 

Scroop, Adrian, mutiny in regi- 
ment of, 280-281. 

Scot, Thomas, m n. 

Scotland, 328. 

Sedgwick, William, attitude to- 
ward second Agreement of the 
People, 265; opinion of origin 
of Levellers, 357-358. 

Selden, John, 60-61, 220. 

Separatists, 53, 88, 97, 256, 257. 

Sexby, Edward, speech sets forth 
spirit of the Agreement, 227- 
228; makes terms with Com- 
monwealth, 271. 

Short Parliament, 8, 9. 

Simpson, Sidrach, one of five Hol- 
land ministers, 52 n. 

Simson, John, 332 n. 

Skippon, Philip, 165. 

Smectymnuus, 67. 

Socinians, 52 n, 99, 257. 

Solenan Engagement, description 
and signing of, 167-168; provi- 
sions of, 168, 182, 184, 202; 
House of Commons' action to- 
ward, 169; Lilburne's interpreta- 
tion of, 185, 284; significance of, 
230; Irish campaign related to, 
279; mentioned, 185, 188, 230, 
303 n. 

Solemn League and Covenant, 95, 
122, 204, 226, 266, 355. 

Southwark, Peters's influence in, 
103 n; meetings of Levellers at, 
234. 

Sovereignty, Parliamentary, evo- 
lution of (1640-1642), 7 ff.; 
based on law of nature, 22 ff.; 
Royalists attack, 38 ff.; conflict 
with church over, 60-61, 67 ff.; 
Lilburne's interpretation of, 113 



INDEX 



405 



ff.; comment on in Englands 
Lamentable Slaverie, 116 ff.; 
Levellers upheld House of Com- 
mons, 121 ff., 148, 158; Lil- 
burne's faith in, broken, 181 ff.; 
arose out of compact theory, 
182; set aside by first Agree- 
ment, 207; Lilburne advocated, 
239-240; Levellers no longer 
uphold, 241-242; Walwyn's be- 
lief in, 251; Ireton advocate of, 
345; English idea of, in nine- 
teenth century, 363. 

Sovereignty, popular. Cotton's 
and Williams's doctrine of, 85; 
ideas of founders of Common- 
wealth on, 302 ff., 310; set 
forth in third Agreement, 321 
ff.; extent of, 344; Leveller 
ideal of, never attained, 358 ff. 

Spittlehouse, John, author of 
Army Vindicated, 349 n. 

Sprat, Lilburne's solicitor (1649), 
294. 

Stapleton, Philip, Presbyterian 
leader, 157; Tulidah accused 
by, 160; mentioned, 161, 173. 

Star Chamber, court of, Lilburne 
before, and sentence of, 89 ff., 
109 n, 125 n; Parliament abol- 
ished, 113; Lilburne's inter- 
pretation of law abolishing, 115; 
mentioned, 97, 114, 116, 150, 
259. 

Stationers Company, represses 
unlicensed printing, 110 n. 

Stephen, 145. 

Stewart, Adam, attitude toward 
Prynne, 72. 

Strafford, Earl of, 12, 15, 45, 119, 
308, 340. 

Surrey, committee of, 105 n. 

Switzerland, Walwyn's political 
ideal, 251 n. 

"Symson the Antinomian," 52 n. 



Taylor, John, author of Brothers 
of the Separation, 97 n; Discovery 
of a Swarme of Separatists, 97 n. 

Taylor, Thomas, imprisoned, 230 n. 



Tew, Nicholas, imprisoned for 
publicly reading Leveller pe- 
tition, 160-161. 

Thompson, Cornet, executed at 
Burford, 281-282. 

Thompson, William, petition of, 
230; connection with Agreement 
of the People, 230 n; connec- 
tion with mutiny (1649), 280 ff.; 
death of, 282. 

Thorough, 308. 

Titus, 334 n. 

Toleration, 158, 250, 268, 272, 312, 
318, 357. 

Tue, Nicholas. See Tew. 

Tulidah, Major, 160, 161. 

Vane, Sir Henry, Lilburne's an- 
tipathy for, 171; author of Heal- 
ing Question, 351; advocated 
sovereignty of the people, 351; 
mentioned, 104, 174. 

Vemey, Tom, 314. 

Walker, Clement, House of 
Lords fined, 154; author of 
Triall, Of Lieut. Collonell John 
Lilburne, 291 n. 

Waller, Edmund, opinion on ship 
money, 45. 

Waller, Sir Hardresse, 228. 

Walwyn, William, Peters's as- 
sociation with, 103 n; author of: 
Fountain of Slaunder (1649), 123 
n; Walwyn^ s Just Defence, 123 
n; influence in radical Independ- 
ent party, 158; Independents' 
hostility to petitions of, 172; 
immediate cause of break be- 
tween radicals and Independ- 
ents, 177; attack on, 190; Lil- 
burne's admiration for, 242; 
Kiffen's arraignment of, 242 
ff.; life of, 244 ff.; allied with 
radical Independents, 245; Pres- 
byterian nominally, 245; ar- 
rested and charged with author- 
ship of Englands New-Chaines 
Discovered (1649), 246; style of 
discourse of, 247-248; charges 
against, 249-250, 287; doctrines, 



406 



INDEX 



250, 251 ; influence on Levellers, 
251 ff., 314; Switzerland, polit- 
ical ideal of, 251 n; author of 
W ord in Season, 2S1 n; connec- 
tion with communism, 255; ad- 
vocate of liberty of conscience, 
256-257; Price's hostility to- 
ward, 260 n; named on com- 
mittee to frame second Agree- 
ment of the People, 263; impris- 
oned (1649), 276; defends his 
character, 287-288; mentioned, 
116 n, 153 n, 175 n, 217. 

Warmstry, Thomas, author of 
Pax Vohis (1641), 15 n; opinion 
on compact theory, 15 n. 

Watson, Leonard, 174. 

West, Colonel Francis, testified 
against Lilburne, 295. 

West Indies, Lilburne promised 
to remove to, 291-292. 

Westminster Assembly. See As- 
sembly of Divines. 

Westmoreland, charges made by 
men of, 131. 

Whalley, Edmund, mutiny in 
regiment of, 279; mentioned, 
190, 285. 

Wharton, Thomas, Lilburne's 
association with, 88-89; im- 
prisoned and fined for dealing 
in Puritan books, 89. 

White, Francis, intermediary be- 
tween mutineers and Fairfax, 
281; terms offered to mutineers 
by, 283; mentioned, 185, 275. 



White, John, jailer of Lilburne, 
154; mentioned, 174. 

Wildman, John, credited with 
plot to kill Cromwell, 191: 
author of Putney Projects 
(1647), 195 n; defense of Agree- 
ment of the People, 212-213; 
intermediary in Leveller party, 
232; author of Truths triumph, 
(1647/8), 233 n; imprisoned 
for connection with Leveller 
petition (1648), 237; member 
of committee to frame second 
Agreement of the People, 263; 
makes terms with the Conunon- 
wealth, 271; implicated with 
Royalists, 331; retains Leveller 
ideas, 352 n; mentioned, 217, 
238 n, 252. 

William the Conqueror, Lilburne's 
opinion of work of, 133; swore 
to maintain laws of Edward the 
Confessor, 145; contest with 
Harold, 216. 

Williams, Roger, states doctrine 
of liberty of conscience, 65; de- 
mocracy of, 85; influence on 
Independents, 99; order of 
House of Commons against, 99; 
mentioned, 81,82. 

Willoughby, Lord, difficulty with 
King, 153. 

Windsor, 231. 

Wray, George, involved in dispute 
over Harraton colliery, 329 n. 



!9lf5 



